Lily Evans and the Boy Next Door
by WarriorsSword6
Summary: Lily's life has been turned upside down.Things she thought could never be real are, and the family that has disregarded her suddenly loves her. She will come to make enemies of people she first thought were friends, and friends of former 'enemies'.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 - Him and Her**

**Lily Marie Evans was an average height, skinny, red hair, and green eyed, sporty, energetic girl of ten years old soon to be eleven. In fact, her birthday was little more than a week away.  
Lily got out of bed and threw on an old t-shirt and some jogging shorts, pulled her hair up into a high ponytail, and strapped on her sports watch. She looked around her room, reminding herself to clean it later, and dug her sneakers out from under a pile of clean clothes she had yet to put away. She pulled on her sneakers and started down the stairs headed for the kitchen.  
Once there, she got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and took a couple of sips. She walked to the back door that led into the yard from the kitchen. When she opened the door she felt a cool breeze and decided to put on her favorite running jacket. It was a hooded, cotton, baby blue jacket with a white mesh stripe on both elbow-length sleeves.  
She walked out into the yard, zipping up her jacket as she walked, moving around to the side of the house where she always stretched before her morning jog. She unrolled her yoga mat and began stretching her muscles so that she wouldn't end up pulling one while she was jogging.  
After stretching she rolled her mat back up and carried it over to lean against the white picket fence again. As she looked up from the mat she had just put down she came face to face with the boy who lived in the house next to hers.  
The boy had bright hazel eyes and jet black hair that was always messy. He leaned against the fence and smiled at Lily. Only the smile was more of a smirk.  
"James Potter. Long time, no see; what do you want?" Lily asked irritated.  
"Good morning to you too Lils; going on your daily morning jog?" James asked ignoring her question and smiling wider as she became more irritated. "You know, I was in a really good mood before you decided to 'grace me' with your presence. Now what do you want?" Lily replied curtly putting a sarcastic emphasis on 'grace me'.  
"Actually, I was going to go for a jog myself as well and decided to wait for you seeing as you probably know the best route." 'That's a load of bull hockey' thought Lily.  
It was only then, however, that Lily realized that he was wearing basketball shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt and sneakers. She immediately turned on her heels and walked along the fence, through the gate, and onto the sidewalk.  
Just as she was about to start jogging James stepped in front of her and said "Trying to leave without me?"  
"Sod off Potter! I'm not taking you with me." Lily replied.  
"Okay then, I'll just have to follow you." James smirked.  
"Urg! Potter, do you know how annoying you are?" Lily growled at James. James only continued to smirk in response. "You're very self assured aren't you Potter?"**

**"Yes, yes I am." 'He is so infuriating!'**

"**Okay, fine. If you insist upon coming then at least try to keep up. Don't expect me to slow down and wait for you." Lily gave in a plan forming in her mind. She dodged around James and began jogging at what most would call a fast pace. James caught up with her and decided to start a conversation.  
"So how far are we jogging today, or should I say running. You could slow down the pace a bit you know."  
"What? Can't keep up Potter?"  
"No, I can keep up; I'm just not sure if you can."  
"Excuse me, but I have been jogging this route every morning since I was nine, James Potter, and I have always gone this pace."   
"So, anyway, exactly how long did you say this is?"  
"I didn't say, but since you asked its five kilometers."  
"At this pace?!" James asked incredulously "You'll keel over before you finish four!"  
"Like I said before, I know my limitations." Lily then smirked a little "but do you know yours?" Then she picked up the pace a little.  
At the end of four kilometers they had reached a small park in their neighborhood. Lily stopped and began walking towards a water fountain that was situated by a small bench.  
"Ah ha! I knew…you couldn't... hold out the... entire... five kilometers." James said, clutching his side and gasping for breath. He stumbled to the bench and collapsed on it.  
Lily raised an eyebrow at him. "What's makes you think I'm stopping for a break? Or that I'm even tired?" then she passed by the bench and took a sip from the water fountain. "Come on, then. Off we go again."  
Lily started off again on her jog. James hopped back up, quickly took a sip from the fountain, and started after her. When he finally caught up she asked "What took you so long?"  
"I was thirsty too, you know."  
"Actually, I didn't think you would, or could, actually keep going the way you collapsed on that bench."  
"Collapsed! I didn't collapse! I just-" as he said this, Lily threw him a 'yeah, right' look from the corner of her eye "Okay, maybe I did collapse, but why wouldn't I continue?"  
"I didn't think you would have the stamina to keep going. Why did you anyways?"  
They turned the corner and were at the opposite end of their street, their houses in sight.  
"Why did I what?"  
"Why did you keep going?"  
"Well for two reasons actually. One: I'm not a quitter."  
"And the other?"  
By now they were back in front of their houses where they had started. They stopped jogging and caught their breath by walking in little circles, their hands on their heads for any stomach cramps. Lily moved to her mat and unrolled it to stretch on again.  
"Would you like to use a mat to stretch on?"  
"Err... sure I suppose. What's with all of the stretching anyways?" James asked as Lily disappeared behind the door of her shed and reappeared carrying a mat for him.  
"Well, if you don't stretch you'll end up pulling a muscle or a ligament or something, and, as much as I don't like you, that would be a tragedy."  
"And why is that?"   
"Because if you get hurt and end up in some sort of sling or a caste I might start to pity you and that could lead to friendship."  
"And what may I ask, is so bad about being friends?"  
"Well, who would want to be friends with a conceited prat?"  
There was a pause in conversation as James sat down to stretch.  
"So what was the other reason for you to keep going?" Lily questioned again.  
"Well, believe it or not, you." James answered.  
Lily looked up from her figure-four stretch and stared at James. James sensing her eyes on him looked up and straight into them. How long exactly they sat like that Lily wasn't sure.  
They were jarred from their 'moment' by the click of the screen door as it opened and Mrs. Evans came out into the backyard.  
"Lily breakfast is ready. Oh, hello James. How are you doing dear?" Angela Evans asked.  
"I'm doing fine Mrs. Evans, and you?"  
"I'm well. Would you like to join us for breakfast?"  
"Mu-um…." Lily began to complain, but James, who surprisingly turned down the offer, saved her the necessity.  
"That's alright Mrs. Evans. My, er, mum is making breakfast already probably. However, I would like to invite Lily here to my birthday party tomorrow." 'Why that sneaky little… that's what he wanted! Oooh!' thought Lily.  
"Ha! Like I'd ever go to—" Lily was cut off by her mother.  
"Lily would be delighted to come to your birthday party tomorrow James. What time is it at?"  
"It's tomorrow at my house at one in the afternoon. You can come too, if you like."  
"Thank you James, but Richard and I have a garden party that we are supposed to attend for his business."  
"Okay, well, I better get going before my mum can't find me in the house and starts going ballistic." James got up and went to the fence, then turned to face Lily again "Oh, and bring a swimsuit and a towel, we might go swimming or something."  
Lily nodded her head at James calling a reluctant "Goodbye" to him mumbling under her breath "and good riddance too, if you ask me." Then she followed her mother inside the house to eat breakfast, complaining about having to go to James Potter's birthday party all the way.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – The party**

"But mum! Do I really have to go to Potter's party?" Lily asked for the hundredth time that day.  
"Yes, Lily, you do. Now stop complaining and help me pick out an outfit for you." Mrs. Evans replied irritated, going through Lily's closet "What about this skirt and this top?"  
"No mum. Can't I just wear shorts and a t-shirt?"  
"Lily, dear, I talked to Mrs. Potter and she said that it was a little on the dressy side of casual wear, therefore you must wear at least a skirt! I will not allow you to embarrass yourself by letting you wear a crumby old t-shirt and shorts!" 'Yeah right,' thought Lily 'more like she won't let me embarrass her and dads reputation.'  
"Ugghh. If I have to dress up then at least let me pick out my own clothes." Lily then reluctantly joined her mother in picking out her outfit for James party. They went through top, after top, after skirt, after skirt, after dress. Finally, after what seemed like hours to Lily, they came up with two outfits to choose from: a summer dress and a skirt and top.  
The dress was light green with emerald green leaves and flowers printed on it. It had spaghetti string straps and a small slit in between the collarbones held together by a dark green lace ribbon. The dress was made of a soft yet stiff cottony material that reached just to the tops of her knees.  
The skirt and top ensemble consisted of a black silk slip under and attached to a black lacey see-through material cut so that it looked like two pieces overlapping each other with wavy pieces of the lacey material along the edges. The top was white and covered with mostly tiny blue flowers that were occasionally attached to little green vines, stems, and leaves. It was cut in a Chinese, figure-fitting fashion with a swirl, silvery blue and white button closing the short collar. The entire top was outlined with a silky blue hem and was made of a mix of a cotton and nylon material that gave it a stretchy feel.  
"Which would you rather wear," questioned Mrs. Evans, "the skirt and blouse or the dress?"  
"Well, considering I'm going to wear the skirt and blouse to my birthday party; I think I'll wear the dress." Lily replied logically taking both outfits from Mrs. Evans and setting them on her dresser for her use of them the next day and on her upcoming birthday.  
"Can I go to bed now?" Lily asked in an annoyed sarcastic tone.  
"No, of course not." Replied Mrs. Evans in a serious voice. Lily laughed slightly at first, thinking that her mother was kidding, but stopped after receiving a serious glare from her. "Now we have to pick out some shoes and a purse. Some jewelry, too."  
"Jewelry too? Do I have too?" Lily whined.  
"If you absolutely cannot stand to wear very much jewelry, then at least wear a necklace and I'll be happy. Now pick out some nice shoes and I'll get some purse choices. Wait, where are your purses?"  
"In my closet on the very top shelf. You may have to get a step ladder to reach them."  
"Well, no wonder you never use a purse; always that bloody backpack that you're obsessed with." Mrs. Evans muttered pulling the chair from Lily's desk and using it as a ladder to bring down the box full of purses.  
Lily picked a pair of shoes and showed them to her mother, who was sorting through the box of purses muttering about 'wasting money' and 'collecting clutter'.  
"No, not those, they don't match. What about those ones with the little flowers on them? They're cute."  
"No way, too many flowers; besides, the colors will clash. Ooh! I know! These are perfect!" Lily exclaimed, pulling out a pair of strappy twine canvas platform sandals that she would most likely break her neck in.  
"Finally, a little excitement over something other than tennis shoes and sweat suits. And look at that, they'll go perfectly with the dress. Now for a purse."  
After finally picking out a twine and canvas purse to match the shoes they had picked and a necklace, they went to bed. As soon as Lily's head hit the pillow, she fell into a restless sleep.

"James!" Lily gasped as she sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily, beads of cold sweat running down her face. 'What could that dream mean?' she questioned herself. Lily got up and went to the bathroom, passing the door of her sister Petunias room on the way.  
Petunia was three years older than Lily. She had brown hair and brown eyes, a long neck, a bony face, and a boring boyfriend of one year named Vernon Dursley. Petunia was always mean to Lily. She called her strange, a freak, a tomboy, and always had a mean comeback for her, especially when Vernon was around.  
She reached the bathroom and, after quietly pulling the door shut, turned the light on and splashed cold water on her face. Drying her hands and face with a towel hanging from the hook on the wall, Lily looked in the mirror still thinking about the dream. 'What could it mean? Why was James in it? It couldn't be true could it? Things like that don't exist, do they?'   
As these thoughts ran through her head, one stuck its ugly nose out of line. 'I was dreaming about James. WHY was I dreaming about JAMES POTTER?' Then another part of her brain said 'Probably due to the stress of being forced to attend his birthday party tomorrow.' she glanced at her wrist watch 'scratch that, having to attend his birthday party today.'  
Lily returned to her bedroom quietly and flopped on her bed. After pushing the dream from her mind, she quickly drifted into a peaceful sleep full of good dreams, instead of nightmares. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-   
"SHUT OFF THAT BLOODY ALARM!" came the shrill sound of her sisters voice from down the hall, followed by the slam of a door.   
Lily got up, turned off her alarm, and looked out her window.

The view from her window was, in her opinion, anything but glamorous. All you could see when you looked out it was the side of the Potter's house, a little grass, and... well... nothing, unless James window counted, which it didn't to her.  
She turned to the clothes she had set out the night before and sighed. 'Oh boy! A whole day with Potter while wearing a dress, carrying a useless purse, and wearing shoes that, although nice, I'll probably break my neck in! It makes me so happy. Not!' Lily thought to herself. Lily sat at her desk and began through her jewelry box looking for a necklace that wasn't too dressy but went with her outfit. She picked a necklace made of black cord-like string with four beads on it: two light yellow-brown wood beads, two black, and a silver center charm shaped like a sword.   
Looking at the necklace, Lily thought 'This is such a cool necklace. I wonder where I got it. Probably from mom. I swear, every time I turn around she's adding to my pile of junk that she calls jewelry!' As Lily got up to put the necklace with her outfit she happened to bump into her dresser and knock over her yoga matt.  
"I should probably do my yoga now. Maybe it will take away the pain in my neck." she said out loud to herself "Oh, wait, that's just Potter. Never mind." she then unrolled the yoga mat and began doing her exercises.  
When she was finished she put up the mat and looked at her watch. Only 9:30, she still had a lot of free time, and she wasn't hungry, so she sat down at her desk again.  
Her desk just happened to be right under her window. Lily sat there looking absent mindedly out of her window and into James' trying to think of something to do until one other than sit and wait. Nothing came to mind immediately so, she kept thinking about it, gazing into James' open window. Then, quite suddenly, it wasn't empty anymore. It was occupied by a rather large white and black blotched owl.  
After a minute or two of pecking on the window, it opened, and the owl flew into the room.  
The owl landed on a chair just inside the room, and stuck out its leg, which she now realized had something small tied to it. Lily could see a pair of hands reach out and try to untie the object from the owls leg, but the but the string obviously had a hard knot stuck in it, because the person had to lean in to get a better look at it. The person just happened to be James Potter.   
James finally got the knot untied and the owl flew farther into the room so that Lily couldn't see it anymore. James sat in front of his window, in the chair the owl had been perched on, at his desk (which he had purposely sat facing Lily's window, and looked at whatever it was that was attached to the owl for a while. Then he chanced a glance up and out his window, which just happened to mean that he was looking directly into Lily's window, and directly at her. Their eyes locked for a moment. During this moment, which Lily noticed seemed to last longer than it should, Lily studied him.   
James hair was messy, as always, but today it looked a little more... stylish might be the word. His eyes were a deep, deep gorgeous shade of chocolate brown. He also just happened to not have a shirt on, giving Lily a chance to study his torso. She noticed that, while he didn't look the type, or the build, he did actually have stomach muscles; the beginnings of what looked like a six-pack.   
The moment was ended by Potter greeting her "Hey Lils!" She snapped out of her analysis of his muscles and replied "Hello James." in as casual a way as she could manage. There was a rather long pause then "Okay, well, I have to go get ready for your party...err...bye." and she disappeared from her window, quickly gathered her outfit, and headed for the shower.  
Lily took a refreshing shower, got dressed, descended the stairs into the living room, and looked at the clock on the wall. It was 1:05. Lily hurried back up the stairs and put on the necklace she had dug out earlier, then grabbed the small box containing the present she had bought for James and hurried back down the stairs. Lily exited the house through the front door, grabbing, also, the present her mom bought for James as a present from the family. Lily walked down the driveway, across the sidewalk, back up the Potter's driveway, and on up to their front door. She sighed and rang the doorbell, putting on her 'oh yes, of course I'm happy to be here' smile as she waited for someone to answer the door.  
"Lily, dear. Come on in. Here, give me those presents and I'll put it with the others." greeted Mrs. Potter. Margaret Potter was a short but thin lady. She had, surprisingly enough, black hair with bubblegum pink highlights, probably for the party. Also, she had very fine features, like that of a wise old woman who's seen it all, even though she was only around thirty six now.  
After placing James present from her mum on an ever-growing pile on a table by the door, Lily put her present to him in her purse, which was empty, and followed Mrs. Potter. Mrs. Potter took Lily through the house and out the back door, all the way chatting to her without pause "OH, I'm so glad you came, dear. Your mother said you might not be able to make it, but here you are/James will be so pleased that you could come. Oh, Lily dear, I love your dress! It looks gorgeous on you!" Lily managed to fit in a quick "Thanks" before Mrs. Potter continued "Ahh, here we are. James and his little friends are just talking right now, but we'll start games and such when all of the guests arrive. Off you go now, don't be shy."  
And with that Lily was given a slight shove in the direction of the corner where James and five other boys were sitting around a white lawn table, talking animatedly about something. Then James, who was sitting facing Lily and the back door, looked up and fell completely silent, his jaw dropping and his eyes widening in an oddly attractive way. 'What are you talking about Lily! Get a hold of yourself! This is Potter we're talking about!' Lily thought to herself. James' friends looked at him strangely for a minute then looked up at her just as she said "Hello there, James. Having a nice birthday party?" and bridging the remaining gap between the table and myself.  
The only empty seat was on the end next to James, and another boy, so she sat in it and put her chin in her hand while waiting for him to respond. She soon found herself trying not to look annoyed at his newfound hobby of staring at her.   
However a couple of his friends had joined in staring at her and she was starting to get annoyed.  
"Umm... Potter? Helloo-oooo?" she said trying to snap him out of it, whatever it was; but James and his friends kept staring at her with a surprised look on their faces. By now she was really annoyed and wanted to just smack him up side the head to get him to stop, but refrained from doing so. Then she noticed a glass of water sitting on the table in front of one of his friends with shoulder length black hair.  
"Do you mind?" she asked him politely, gesturing to his glass. He just sort of blinked and nodded slightly in response, so she took it as a 'yes'.  
She dipped her fingers in the glass and pulled them back out, then quickly flicked all the water on her fingers in James face. He blinked a couple of times then seemed to come to his senses, wiping off his face and quickly smacking his friend to the left on the arm to get him to snap out of it.  
"Err... right...err, guys this is Lily Evans. Lily this is Sirius Black-" the boy with the long black hair whose water she had used smiled, he was sitting on James other side across from Lily "-Remus Lupin-" the boy beside her nodded his head at her, he had light brown caramel colored hair "-Peter Petigrew-" By far the worst looking of the boys, he had short light blond hair and a rat-like appearance, he was sitting behind Sirius "-Andrew Michaels-" Andrew had dark blonde hair that reached down to the tops of his ears in a kind of shaggy looking way and had hazel-ish brown eyes "-and Sammy Turner." Sammy was sitting behind Lupin and had black, no, blue hair. A very dark navy blue to be exact.

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"Oh, right. You're the sensible one who sat and read all day and you're the idiot who went streaking through my back yard."

"Um... Yeah..." Remus said, blushing slightly.

"Why are you blushing? He's the one who streaked through my backyard, which was gross by the way. My mother freaked out and called the cops too. That part was actually kind of funny..."

"What can i say? I feel the need to be free." Sirius smirked at Lily cockily. 'Jackass.' Lily thought.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. So what were you all talking about?"

"Oh, nothing really." James said, looking around innocently.

"Right, like THAT'S believable? I know you well enough, James, to know that anything you're talking about can't be nothing. You're too mischievous to think about simple things like who won the football finals and such. Now, what are you up to?"  
"I-I have now clue what you're talking about Lily." answered James.   
"Okay, fine. But you better not be planning to pull pranks on me!" I responded.  
At this James seemed a little relieved. "Oh, come on Lils. You have to admit that was pretty funny."   
"I do not. And I won't. I personally did not think that it was funny. And neither did my mum when I came home covered in sticky stuff. And I was the one who got punished for it too. I was grounded for two weeks, while you were out running around doing only god knows what." Lily said rather heatedly. She had wanted to chew James out for this ever since it had happened last month.  
"Wait. Let me get this straight. I pulled a prank on you. You got mad at me, then went home. Then your mum got mad at you because you were covered in sticky stuff from the prank I pulled and punished you." James paused looking a little confused. "That's weird. Not to mention completely backwards, you know? Your mum has a bad temper too, doesn't she? I remember that time when we first moved in here and I accidentally spilled something on her new carpet. She practically exploded in my face." James reminisced.  
"Yes, well, she does have a rather bad temper. Especially when it comes to the house. I mean, she's a cleaning fanatic. Can't stand even the tiniest of spot on the floor. You know, after you left that day she immediately called in a floor cleaning place. And when they couldn't get the spot up she had the entire downstairs re-carpeted." said Lily, laughing a little at her mothers obsession.  
"No way!" said James joining in her laughter. He was followed by the rest of the group, Peter coming in last and laughing a little too hard, probably because he didn't get the joke.  
They continued laughing for a while with random little comments by the others on the odd things that their parents did. When the laughter died down they all heard a CLACK! as the screen door closed on James house and two girls came out.

The two girls looked incredibly similar. The first girl had long red hair with natural blonde highlights that reached the middle of her lower back in waves and bright sapphire blue eyes. She was wearing a jean mini skirt and a white spaghetti strap tank top under a navy blue v-neck vest that had a hood in the back and a hoody pocket in the front. On her feet she wore a pair of brown and navy blue tennis shoes that had a 'DC' logo on the side. Lily had never heard of this brand before, but she didn't find it unusual seeing as she didn't normally pay attention to brands. Normally she would just buy the shoes that fit her and didn't look like giant bits of glitter. Also the girl had her ears pierced three times; one pair of small silver loops, one pair of faux diamond studs, and one pair of silver star studs lined her ears on each side. Around her neck she wore a blue and green gem with little flecks of gold in it on a silver chain and on her wrists was an assortment of silver, blue, green, purple, black, and white bracelets. The girl carried a large blue hand bag on her shoulder that looked like it could swallow Lily whole. Well, maybe it wasn't _that_ big, but it wasn't small either.

The other girl Also had red hair, but the natural highlights in hers were brown, making her hair a little darker than the first girl's, and it reached two or three inches past her shoulders in wavy locks. Her eyes were a green hazel and were complimented nicely by the light band of freckles that crossed her nose. She was wearing long jean shorts and a green t-shirt with the design of a dragon printed on it in black. She had on a pair of black converses and a black belt with silver studs in it to match. The girl had four or five string bracelets on her wrists and a gold locket on a long golden chain hanging from her neck.  
"Becca! Rebby! Hey! It's great to see you again! Guys, except for Remus, and Lily, this is Rebecca Burns" he gestured to the first girl. "And this is Rebecca Miller. They go by Becca and Rebby respectively to cut down on the confusion. Becca, Rebby, this is Sirius, Peter, Andrew, Sammy, and the lovely Lily, also the only other girl here at the moment." James introduced everyone to the two new girls.  
Lily sent a small annoyed glare at James and reached out to shake Becca and Rebby's hands. "It's nice to meet you two. Would you like to go get a coke?" Lily asked in a friendly way. She didn't know them yet, but Lily already liked them. The two girls agreed to get a coke with Lily, so they walked over to the table that was sitting against the back wall of the house and found a couple of cokes in a cooler to drink.  
"So, Becca, Rebby," Lily started, in need of some sort of conversation "How do you know James?"  
"Oh, we met at a, err, garden party a couple of years ago. We didn't really keep in touch, but his and my father work in the same, err, department at work, so we see each other when we're forced to go to business dinners and stuff. How do you know James?" Becca asked in return smiling like a child on a sugar high.  
"I live next door. How I ended up here, at his party, I'm still not sure. I think it may be some sort of punishment devised by my sister for something that's not even my fault. That or my mom just wants me to make friends with him." Lily replied.  
"You don't like James?" Rebby asked sort of surprised "Usually everybody likes him."   
"It's not that I don't like the bloke, he can just be really annoying sometimes. He always knows just how to get to me, to make me mad. And for some odd reason he always does. Make me mad that is."  
"Oh, really? I don't really know him that well. I only see him like, once or twice year generally. But Rebby, James and I are going to the same school this year, so we'll probably be seeing a lot more of each other."  
"Really? Which school is that?" Lily asked hoping that she wouldn't be going to the same school as him.  
"It's, err, called Hogwarts. It's, umm, a small private school in northern England. You've probably never heard of it." Rebby replied rather awkwardly.  
"Oh, that's cool I suppose. I feel sorry for you having to go to school with James though." Lily said a little relieved.  
The three girls continued to talk for a while, as more and more guests arrived. By the time it seemed that everyone who was going to come had come, there was at least forty people at the party ranging in ages from a couple years younger than Lily to quite a few years older. Lily, Rebby and Becca's little group was joined by two other girls, Jill Black and Belinda Hopkins.  
Jill was of average height and a curvy but slim build. Her straight brown hair had blonde highlights and was worn down so that it reached the bottom of her shoulder blades, curving softly at the ends. She had light blue eyes, the color of the ocean in pictures of the Caribbean, with light tan lines running through them. They reminded Lily of the ocean and the beach in summer. Jill's halter top was light blue, the same color as her eyes, and she wore a dark blue jean skirt with a rainbow striped belt around her waist. She had a pair of clear blue thong flip flops on her feet and a pair of black sunglasses on the top of her head holding back her hair from falling into her eyes. Around her neck was a silver chain with a silver charm of a dragon and a tiger about the size of a bottle cap and her ears had a pair of blue dangly earrings hung from her ears. Jill was a funny girl, always with a witty come back or amusing comment to add to a conversation. She was tough too, Lily could tell by her stance that Jill was not someone to anger easily, but that when she did you had better stay out of her way.

Belinda, who immediately requested everyone call her Bindi, had straight, light brown hair that nearly reached her shoulders and light grey eyes. She was tall for her age, at least a head taller than Lily, who was of average height, and had olive toned skin. Her slightly curvy form was clothed in a fitted black t-shirt and a pair of tan cargo pants held up by a black leather belt and on her feet was a pair of black high heeled flip flops. She had a small black purse and was wearing dangly black and gold earrings and a gold bracelet.

A little after everybody arrived, James turned on some music as an attempt to get people to dance. Nobody really seemed willing to, so Lily took it upon herself to get the party going. She turned to the four girls standing with her, who were talking about a store that was apparently called Zonkos.  
"Hey guys. Why don't we go dance?" Lily asked.  
"YES! Finally some to dance with!" cried Jill.

"I'll dance too!" agreed Bindi.  
"How 'bout you two?" Lily prompted Becca and Rebby.  
"Oh boy! Dancing! You know, I love coke! it makes me hyper though. Oh well cokecokecokecokecoke!" Sirius just sort of popped in behind Becca and said this rapidly, bouncing slightly, then disappeared again just as quickly.

"Um, that was odd." Rebby said.

"Yeah, just a little." Becca added.

"You're one to talk. After you've had seven or eight cokes you tend to be worse off than he is now."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"You're living in denial."

"Maybe i like it here. It's nice and warm with a light cool breeze coming in off of the Mediterranean."

"Ha ha, no. That joke is way overdone. Please never attempt it again."

Becca, in her ever so mature manner, stuck her tongue out at Rebby, who responded like wise.

"Well, could any of you three possibly be persuaded to go dance with Jill and I?" Lily asked.

"Hmm... This is one mighty good cookie. I don't want to ruin it by bouncing while i eat it. I think i'll just sit down here and finish it." Becca said, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. She took a bite out of the chocolate chip cookie and ate it slowly, so slowly it was almost painful.  
"Beeeeecccaaaaa? Pleeeeeeeeaaaase?" Lily and Jill pleaded.  
"What? I'm eating." Becca said while taking a bite out of her cookie and chewing as slowly as possible.  
"BEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Lily, Jill, and now Bindi as well, groaned.  
"WHAAAAT? What did I do?" Becca replied.  
"Will you come dance with us? Pleeaaaassseee!!!!" Lily begged.  
"Okay, okay. Fine. Just let me finish my cookie." she replied taking another bite and chewing as slow as possible.

"Rebby? You too?"

"Um... Sure..." she agreed reluctantly.  
When Becca finally finished eating her cookie, the girls dragged her and Rebby out onto the dance floor and started dancing. After a while a few others joined in the dancing. They were all having a blast when a slow song came on.   
"Dang it all! I was just getting the hang of this dancing stuff too." said Becca.  
"What now?" questioned Jill.  
"I don't know." Lily responded to Jill's question only to turn around and see that she was gone. She looked around and noticed that Jill was now dancing with Andrew, and that Bindi was dancing with Matthew Tanner, a boy with short black hair who had just rolled up a couple of seconds ago on his skateboard. Lily knew him only because he lived down the street and she heard her sister gossiping with her friends about him and his family. Rebby and Becca were looking questioningly at Lily, wondering why she was talking to herself no doubt. Before either girl could voice this question, a guy named Michael walked up and asked Rebby to dance. She accepted and walked onto the dance floor with him. Lily looked around for Remus, she had thought him to be the more mature of James's friends and was going to ask him to dance, but that plan was shortly spoiled when she saw that he was dancing with another girl already. Lily turned to Becca and with only a glance they both headed to the snack table. The people who weren't dancing were standing there for the most part.  
"Sooo... Coke?" offered Becca.  
"No thanks. I'm not thirsty." Lily replied watching as a girl led Sammy out onto the dance floor. "So, if you had to pick one of the guys here to dance with, who would you pick?" asked Lily making conversation.  
"Umm... Remus or Sirius. Although James is kind of cute. How 'bout you?" replied Becca.  
"I would have to say... Remus would be my first pick."  
"And your second pick?"  
"I think I'll have to go with-"   
"Me! Pick me!" interrupted James from out of no where.   
"Well? Would you pick him?"  
"Uh, NO, definitely not."  
"Hey! You could at least not say that in front of me at my birthday party."  
"Well it's the truth."  
"She's got you there mate."  
"Oh, bugger off Sirius, I don't see you dancing with anyone."   
"Actually I was just coming to ask Becca, is it?" Becca looked surprised then just sort of nodded at him in a dazed sort of way. The two of them walked onto the dance floor and started dancing.   
"So." said James.  
"So." said Lily.   
"You wanna dance?" James asked sheepishly a hint of a blush coming over his cheeks.  
Lily had every intention of saying no, until she saw him blush. When he blushed she just couldn't help it, he looked so cute, not to mention James Potter was not one to blush very often.  
"Well... On two conditions."  
James brightened up considerably "And they are...?"  
"One: no pranks."  
"Check!"  
"Two: don't laugh at me if I can't dance, I haven't had very much practice at slow dancing."  
"Oh I have every confidence in your abilities to slow dance, and even if you do terribly, I swear I'll never laugh, not once."  
"Okay then, here goes nothing." Lily sighed rather reluctantly.  
Dancing with James wasn't actually as bad as she thought it would be. He didn't laugh at her when she stepped on his foot once, and somehow she seemed to be able to just, fall into rhythm with him, which was kind of weird because the previous times she had slow danced with a boy, they had ended up giving up because she kept stepping on his feet and couldn't seem to get the rhythm right. After a while the slow song ended and Lily found that she didn't want to stop dancing with James. Yet again the voices in her head reared their ugly heads 'Lily! What ARE you doing! You don't like James, he is not cute!' 'He is too.' 'BUT YOU DON'T LIKE HIM!' 'Who's to say I don't?' ' Uh, YOU ARE!!' 'Urrgghh! Ok! Fine! You win! But if he asks me again I'm not going to say no, if only because we make good dancing partners.' 'FINE!'  
"Err… so." said Lily.  
"So." said James.  
"I'm going to go get something to drink now."  
"Can I join you?"  
"I suppose, if you want to. It is your party after all." They both walked over to the snack table and got a coke out of the cooler sitting beside it. Lily walked over to the table they had been at earlier and sat down in a chair. James followed her over and sort of stood awkwardly looking at Lily. "Well go on and sit down."  
"Really?"  
"Nothing's stopping you, I mean it's your house."  
"Yeah, but you would usually bite my head off if I sat down at the same table as you." said James as he sat down hesitantly.  
"Yeah, well, I'm bored, everyone else is dancing, and it's your birthday, so sit down."  
"Well when you put it that way." James sat down in the chair next to Lily's and looked around for something to talk about. "So."   
"So."  
"What are you doing for your birthday?"  
"I'm not sure yet. I'm not going to have a party because I-er... my friends aren't er... in town."  
"All of them?" James asked raising his eyebrow. "I mean, you must have a ton of friends."  
"Actually, I don't have very many friends."  
"Really? Why not?"  
"I don't know. People just find me, I don't know, strange, weird even, compared to others. It's like they look at me and say hi, then they decide that I'm different and that they shouldn't be friends with me." Lily looked at her feet, her self esteem shrinking as she thought about her lack there of in the friends department.  
James, seeing that Lily was getting a little upset, became a little uncomfortable. He was the one who had pushed her into telling him about her lack of friends. He wanted to give her a hug and apologize, but he thought that she might not want him to give her a hug, seeing as she tried to avoid him all the time and she adamantly refused to be friends with him. He did however try to apologize. "Lily... I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"  
"It's okay. You didn't know. You just assumed that because you liked me that everyone else in the world must too. Bit self centered, but nice to know that someone cares." Lily said, then tried to change the subject before she started crying from the feeling of being utterly alone. "So."  
"So."  
"When are you going to open your presents?"  
"Uhhmm... I-I don't know. Now I suppose." James stood up and looked down at Lily again. Another slow song was playing and they were the only ones not dancing other than Peter. "But first, would you mind to terribly much to dance with me again?"  
At this Lily smiled a little. "You know Potter, I dislike many things about you, but one of them is not dancing with you." Lily didn't actually realize that she was saying this till it came out. 'You idiot! Now he's going to think you like him!' 'So! I like to dance with him, it's somehow... soothing.'   
So Lily and James walked out onto the dance floor again and began to dance again. At first they were dancing like they did the first time, all stiff and rigid and practically a foot apart. Then slowly they somehow ended up closer, Lily laying her head on his shoulder with her eyes closed, James guiding her while playing with one of her long red locks of hair behind her back.  
"Awe! They look so cute together! I can't believe that she doesn't like him. I mean, look at her and him over there dancing." Becca, Rebby, Jill, and Bindi had just stopped dancing and were standing by the refreshment table getting something to drink. Becca had just made this comment to the other three and Bindi and Jill looked at her sort of surprised. "What?"  
"She doesn't like him? In any way?" Jill asked, very surprised.  
"Nope." said both Becca and Rebby.  
"So which do you think is better David Bowie or-"  
"Bindi! Aren't you paying attention?"   
"Yes, I am. And all I have to say on the subject is not to meddle in it, trust me, it never helps matters. Anyways, back to what I was saying. Which is better David Bowie or-"  
"Um, James."  
"Yes, Lily?"  
"The, er, song is over."  
"Oh, right." James said disappointed slightly, pulling away from Lily. When he had pulled away he looked at her face and saw that she was blushing a little and smiling brilliantly. "So." said James.  
"So." said Lily.  
"You know, we really need to learn to start conversations in more than one way with out arguing."  
"Yeah, really. So, you going to open your presents now?" she asked.   
"Sure, why not." James whistled, then waved to everyone to come closer. "Okay, present time! Let's go! In the house! Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four." At this everyone did as he said and went inside the house and into the living room where Mrs. Potter had moved his presents to the coffee table. "Okay, which one should I open first?" James then proceeded to rip open present after present, thanking people for their gifts as he went. Most of the presents were clothes, and books, and other boring stuff like that. A couple of them, however, Lily found very curious, like the eagle feather quill he had received, but didn't comment on them. Mrs. Evans had gotten James a navy blue t-shirt that had a logo on the front, and a gift certificate for an arcade. The present Lily had gotten for James was still in her purse. She opened her purse to get it out at one point, but then stopped and decided to give it to him later.  
After he finished opening his presents Mrs. Potter turned off the lights and brought in a cake with eleven candles on top. She walked it over to James and sat it in front of him. James looked around the room, supposedly thinking of his birthday wish, then his glance came to Lily. He looked at her, narrowing his eyes and grinning mischievously, then turned and blew out his candles, making his wish.  
At that moment Lily felt a tingling at the back of her neck that made her shiver. Everyone got a piece of cake and talked. When everyone was finished eating, Sirius gathered them up and led them back outside and over to a corner to play a new game he had just learned. Of course the game just had to be Spin the Bottle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 - Party Games**

Lily sat down on a poolside chair (the Potters had a rather large in ground pool) and watched as Sirius brought out a glass bottle and sat it on the ground in the middle of the circle they were all sitting in. Then Sirius explained how to play. Apparently he, Becca, Rebby, and Lily were the only ones who knew how to play, which kind of surprised Lily as it was a fairly common game.  
"Okay, so, this is how it goes: James will pick who gets to go first since it's his birthday. Whoever he picks will spin this bottle, then the person the bottle points to will have to kiss the person who spun the bottle. If the bottle is spun by a guy and points to a guy then the person who spun spins the bottle again. Same for girls. After the bottle is spun and points to someone, they kiss, then the person whom the bottle pointed to spins the bottle and so on, and so forth." as he finished he sat down as well and gestured for James to start.  
James glanced around the circle trying to decide who should go first. He picked Andrew. "Andrew why don't' you lead us off?"  
At this Andrew's smile got a little bigger and he sat forward to spin the bottle replying "sure." as he did so. Andrew span the bottle and it landed on... Bindi.  
"Andrew and Bindi" announced James. They kissed quickly, just a peck, then it was Bindi's turn.  
Bindi spun and got Sammy. Sammy got Jill. Jill got Michael. Michael got Rebby. Rebby got Remus. Remus got Rebby. Rebby spun and got James. Rebby looked a little surprised, and a little too pleased for Lily's liking, that she would get to kiss Potter. Their kiss lasted only a second; just a quick peck on the lips and it was James turn to spin.

As the bottle span round and round, time seemed to slow for Lily. She watched as the bottle went round and, as the bottle slowed to a stop, her heartbeat quickened, though she didn't know why. And then... it stopped. And it was pointed at...Sirius.  
"Spin again, mate. Unless you want to kiss me?" Sirius said jokingly.  
James gave him one frightened look at the prospect of kissing him and immediately span again. As the bottle went round and round, this time she felt her heart beat slowly, and almost seem to stop right in her chest. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, everyone was looking at where the bottle was pointing.  
Her.  
Lily.   
The bottle was pointing at Lily.  
She just looked at it, then up at James. He stood up and moved to her as she followed his movements and stood as well.  
Lily looked into his eyes; then, almost like it was automatic, natural, like she did it all the time, she leaned in, as did he, and kissed him. Just a light kiss on the lips; just a small, perfect-first-kiss type kiss on the lips. They both pulled back and looked at each other again, then Lily turned and sat down, as did James.  
Now it was Lily's turn. She span the bottle, and this time, instead of slowing, time quickened, and all too quickly the bottle was pointing at James.  
"Oh! I almost forgot to tell you about the doubles rule! If two are put together twice in a row they have to go in a separate room or something together for five minutes." Sirius spoke up out of no where. Of course, no one noticed the mischievous glint in his eyes as he winked at Remus.  
"Err… o-okay. I think we can use the shed." James stammered a little, the red rising in his cheeks, while scratching the back of his neck nervously.  
As this was going on it occurred to Lily that she had never heard of a rule like this before, but for some reason her subconscious pushed it to the back of her mind. She followed James into the shed and Sirius closed the door behind them. It was total darkness inside the shed, Lily couldn't see a thing. She could, however, sense the place where James was standing. She felt him move forward a step or two and stop. For some reason Lily felt extremely nervous; she had butterflies in her stomach, and wasn't sure what she should do.  
"So… um… yeah…." James sort of mumbled. Then he leaned down slightly and kissed her. It was sort of like the first kiss, only this time he put one of his hands on the back of her head and the other on the small of her back. He pulled her towards himself and deepened the kiss ever so slightly as she put her arms around his neck. After a couple of minutes Lily's brain kick started, and she found herself thinking and feeling things that she shouldn't be. Part of her was enjoying itself and wanted to keep kissing him, but another part, a stronger part, told her that she shouldn't be enjoying this one bit and that she should stop now. So a moment later Lily brought her arms down and pushed slightly against James chest, effectively ending the kiss.  
"I can't…" Lily whispered.  
"Can't or won't?" James whispered back.  
"Both." Lily replied in a more commanding tone.  
By now her eyes had grown used to the dark in the shed a little more, and she could see the outline of his face.  
"Two minutes left, you two!" they heard Sirius's voice call from outside.  
"Uh… Lily? Err… have I told you how lovely you look lately?" said James awkwardly, trying to make conversation.  
"Actually, I don't think you have done that yet today. Quite surprising really; you usually stalk me until you get the chance to, which, by the way, is the reason I try to stay inside all summer."  
"Except for when you go running, of course."  
"Of course."  
"Was I really all that bad yesterday on our jog?"  
"No, surprisingly enough, you weren't."  
"Well, then, if it's okay with you, I'd like to join you everyday. If that's okay, that is. If it's not then that's okay, I just like to jog with someone when I jog is all."

Lily thought about this for a moment. He hadn't been too much of an insufferable git yesterday during the jog. He hadn't bugged her to death and he had kept up with her pace. 'Oh well, might as well. It might be nice to have company on my jog.' "Sure, I suppose." she replied reluctantly then added "Why do you want to go jogging anyways?"  
"Well, I, err, I want to try out for a team this year at the school I'm going to."  
"Oh, really? Well I'd say you have nothing to worry about on the fitness side, the question is which team are you going to be on, and do you know how to play?"  
"Well why wouldn't I know how to play a sport?"  
"I don't know, but if you need any help getting ready for one, tell me, I could use the practice."  
"Ms. Evans, are you warming up to me?"  
"Don't get me wrong, Mr. Potter, but this by no mean's means we're friends. I happen to play soccer and this year is my first year on the middle school team. I want to make an impression, and to do that, i have to pratice more. Plus I think it would be fun to kick your sorry arse in a few games and embarrass you."  
"Haha. Very funny. You know-"  
"Okay! Time's up you two! Out with you!" Sirius said opening the doors to the shed and thoroughly blinding the two inside.  
"Thanks a ton, mate. Now I'm temporarily blind."  
"I can't see anything either. It's too bloody bright out there." Lily exclaimed grabbing the door and pulling it most of the way shut. "Not that I want to be stuck in a room with Potter any longer than I need to be, but I think I'll stay in here till my eyes adjust."  
"Well Potter, you turned out to be a worse kisser than you thought. I mean, it sounds like she thoroughly hates you." Sirius commented bluntly.  
"Oh no! Not at all! James is a great kisser. As for hating him, well, hate is a strong word that I try not to use too often. But I do dislike him as much as humanly possible for me to do while living next door to him for most of my life." Lily stuck her head out and replied quickly, then bobbed back in before she got a headache from the light.  
"Thanks Lils." James commented sarcastically. "You know you really had my confidence up for a second."  
"Oh no! I had your confidence up? Bad Lily! Stupid, stupid Lily!" she said mockingly. "And don't call me Lils."  
"Don't worry, confidence level is now at an all time low."  
"Oh goody!"  
"Geeze! They go back and forth like my mum and da!" commented one of the guys.  
"Yeah really! Why don't you two kiss again, make up, and go get married already and spare us the great torment of having to listen to you arguing all night?" said a girl.  
"Trust me. Not. Going. To. Happen." said Lily.  
"And why not?" said an indignant James.  
"See former comment on dislike level."  
"James, your turn again. " Sirius interrupted.  
"You go ahead and spin for me Sirius, I'm going to stay in here too and try not to go blind; or worse, get on Ms. Evans here's bad side."  
"Hey!" Lily pinched his arm.  
"Ouch!"  
"Too late, you're already there, mate. Have fun. Right. So, it's my turn. Oh joy!"

The game went on for a little longer, and then they got bored with it and decided to play something else. Lily and James eyes had adjusted, so they came out as well and joined in the argument over which game to play. Finally everyone decided on Truth or Dare.  
After deciding what to play they took a quick break during which some people went and got beverages and snacks. Everyone then gathered back in their corner and waited for Sirius to explain the rules.

"Okay people, here's how we're going to play: Classic rules; which means only truth or dare can be asked, no double dares and stuff like that. If you pick truth you must answer the question truthfully, and if you pick dare you must go through with the dare you are given. James you get to pick, do you wanna ask first or answer first?"  
"I think I'll ask first." James replied looking around the circle of people "Okay, first victim. Remus, truth or dare?"   
"Hmmm... well given the way you just asked I think it'll be safer to go with truth."  
"Or so you think..." James replied mischievously.  
"Nope, trust me, by now I know. Any of your dares are much worse than any truth you could ever ask me." Remus replied confidently. Of course, he wasn't all that confident really. No, inside Remus was scared to death that they would find out his one deep dark secret. "Do your worst James."   
"I would, but then what would friends be for? No... I think I'll let you off easy. I'll start us off with one of the usual questions. Is there a girl here that you like as more than a friend? And if so, who?"  
Remus let out a breath of relief unnoticed by the others, then thought about what the question meant and began to blush. "Err... yes, there is someone here I like..."   
"And...? Who is she?" Prodded James.  
"Err... izbindi." Remus mumbled.  
"Who? WE CAN'T HEAR YOU REMY OLD BOY! COME ON NOW, SPEAK UP." Sirius said loudly.  
"Okay, fine. Bindi, okay? I like Bindi." Remus said blushing even more, which caused his face to turn a deep shape of red. Bindi was also blushing in her seat in between Becca and Jill.  
"Okay Remus, your turn to ask." prompted James, trying to keep the game moving.  
"Okay then. Let's see... um... should we go in any particular pattern? like boy girl just to be fair? You know, force people to spread out the questions."  
"Not a bad idea Remy, but in the classic version you can't make rules like that, sorry." replied Sirius.  
"All right... uhmm... then I'll go with... Matthew over there."  
"Call me Matt. Let's see... dare."  
"Is that your final answer?" Sirius asked in a game show host voice.  
"Yep, sure is."   
"Okay, your funeral." replied James. He continued at the curious looks the people gave him. "Well, Remy here may not be the devious little mastermind that Sirius is or I are, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know his way around a good dare."  
"You know, sometimes I think that he's been hanging around us too much. Why, I remember when I first met Remus we could barely get him to break a rule, now he's the one finding our way around them," Sirius said smirking "the sneaky little bugger."  
Remus gave them both a look saying shut-up-or-I'll-be-forced-to-kill-you, then turned back to Matt and smiling innocently "So, Matt, feel like a nice, refreshing jog?"...  
"Err... yeah, I suppose... why?" Matt said hesitantly.  
"Because I dare you to run to the end of the street and back in a Speedo, while singing Jingle Bells as loudly as possible." said Remus, smiled innocently at Matt while he tried to figure out whether he was joking or not.  
"You're kidding right?" he asked.

"Nope, never been more serious in my life. Have fun." Remus said keeping a straight face. Matt blinked a few times, then turned to Sirius and James.  
"Come on. You're not going to make me do that are you?"  
"Sorry Matt it's the rules, you have to do what he says." replied James.  
Sirius, instead of answering James, turned to Remus and said "Nice one mate!" and gave Remus a high five.  
"Okay, fine, I'll do it. But I don't have a Speedo."  
"Well I just happened to bring one along in case one such situation as this were to arise." replied Remus, taking a small blue Speedo out of a bag that was sitting in between him and Sirius and smiling at Matt like he hadn't a care in the world.  
"Question: do I have to wear only that, or do I just have to have that on?"  
"Only that, excluding your shoes and socks. You can get changed in the shed. Here's the Speedo." Matt took the Speedo from Remus and headed for the shed to get changed. When he had closed the door everyone sitting in the circle burst out laughing.  
"P-p-poor M-matt!" Lily sputtered out while still laughing hysterically.   
"I-i-i-i kn-know! The p-poor guy h-has to wear a sp-Speedo! A Speedo!" Rebby said in return, laughing just as uncontrollably.  
"A-a-and h-he has t-to go running d-down the street in it belting out J-j-j-jingle Bells!" added Becca.   
"Well, fortunately for him, it's getting dark and not many people will be able to see him." said Lily beginning to calm down from the initial giggle fit. Just then, the door to the shed creaked open, and Matt's head popped out from behind it.  
"Do I really have to?" he asked imploringly, looking at Remus, Sirius, and James.  
"Yup! It's the rules!" Sirius replied immediately.  
"Okay, but you all have to promise not to laugh at me when I come out."  
"Oh, come on Matt, it can't be that bad!" James encouraged.  
"Have fun." was all Remus said.  
"Okay, fine..." and Matt came out from behind the door wearing only his tennis shoes, socks, and the Speedo. He looked at each of them in turn as he walked towards the driveway. Everyone was turning red from suppressing their giggles already. The crowd followed him from the back yard, around the house to the end of the drive way where they stopped and waited for Matt to start running down the street. "Well, here goes what bit of a reputation I have..." he muttered under his breath so that Lily was the only one who caught it and began running towards the end of the street. As soon as he was out of earshot the entire crowd started laughing again. Some even fell on the ground squirming in pain from the stitches in their sides from the fits of giggles.  
When Matt finally got back they all walked back into the back yard. A few people were still laughing lightly at Matt, but they died down as they sat in their chairs and waited for Matt to change back into his regular clothes so that they could continue their game. When he came back out he handed the Speedo to Remus but he rejected it saying he didn't want it. "Well what am I supposed to do with it?" asked Matt.  
"Throw it in the garbage?" suggested James.  
"Good idea!" and he threw the Speedo into the garbage can and sat down in his chair, ready to start the game again. "Sooo... who's it going to be? Hmmmmmm... I know!" then he began murmuring under his breath to a tune that sounded suspiciously like Iny, Meeny, Miny, Mo.

"Becca! Truth or dare?" Matt asked after a couple minutes.  
"Hmmmm... let's see... truth or dare, dare or truth... decisions decisions... what about... no... maybe... no, not that one... hey are those pretzel sticks?" she asked, obviously getting distracted.   
"Err... yes... why?" replied Jill, raising an eyebrow.   
"Can I have some?"  
"Err... yeah sure..." Jill held out the bag of pretzel sticks and Becca got a handful out and started to eat them.  
After a couple minutes Becca pointed at a jar on the floor next to Bindi "That's Nutella right? Can I have some?"  
"Uhhh... yeah..." Bindi handed the Nutella to Becca and she started dipping the pretzels in it and eating them. Then she noticed that everyone was staring at her and snickering at her.  
"What?" she asked blankly blinking a few times.  
"Err... it's your turn. I asked you truth or dare and you didn't answer..." Matt said.  
"Oh! Sorry bout that! I got distracted. I'll go with... dare!" she replied easily eating another Nutella covered pretzel.  
"Err.. okay..." Matt replied shaking his head a little. "I dare you to climb that tree onto the roof wearing a clown wig. And when you get up there you have to make up a song about being a cat stuck in a tree."  
"Okay!" she said. The thing Lily found strange was that she wasn't scared at all of climbing the huge tree up to the three story high roof. Instead she was excited in a hyper way, and couldn't wait to start. Becca hopped up and skipped over to the tree. "Wig please!" she commanded more than asked, holding out her hand expectantly.

Sirius handed her a clown wig that was stripped yellow, red, orange, and green. she put it on and started to climb. Halfway up she stopped and looked around "Oh look, a birdie!"  
"Becca! Keep climbing! You're almost there!" Lily yelled in encouragement.   
"Oh! right! Climbing tree, almost forgot." Becca continued climbing the tree until she was to the top. Then she carefully hopped from the tree to the roof and began singing a strange tuneless song about being a sad kitty stuck in a tree with no one to come and save her. When she had seemingly run out of lines she slid from the roof back onto the tree and climbed back down without any trouble what so ever. She landed right next to Matt, who was somewhat stunned, and said "My turn." then laughed evilly and returned to her seat.  
"Let's see... who shall be the next victim..." Becca looked around at the people making her decision. "So... Sirius... truth or dare?"  
"Dare! Obviously." he replied.  
"Okay then. I dare you to kiss James! On the mouth too, none of that cheek business." she finished looking at Sirius and James. Both were sitting wide eyed and open mouthed in disbelief. "Well, go on! It shouldn't be that big of a problem, I mean, you two are practically joined at the hip as it is, one would think you were, err, 'romantically involved'."

"Urg.. ok fine." Sirius said then turned to James "This is wrong on so many levels."  
"Wait! What!" James yelled snapping out of his daze finally "There is no freaking way I'm going to kiss him!"  
"Too bad! You have to! It's the rules of classic Truth or Dare."  
"Ok fine, just get some mouth wash ready."  
"Hey! I object to that! Wait... that sounded wrong, didn't it?"  
"Yeah it did. Oh well, get it over with."  
James gulped then closed his eyes as Sirius leaned in and quickly pecked him on the mouth, and withdrew again even faster. A shiver went down James back as he opened his eyes and looked around. "Well, that wasn't so bad. Lily's kiss was better though."  
At this everybody broke out in hysterical laughter, even Sirius and James. The only person not laughing was Lily, who got up and smacked James upside the back of his head then joined in the laughter while James rubbed the back of his head.  
"Now it's my turn! Okay, so, truth or dare... Jill!"   
"Who? Me? Um... Well I might as well go with... dare. Just take it easy on me would ya'?" She said looking at Sirius uneasily.  
"Okay... let's see... easy... um I know! I dare you to kiss me and thereby wash away the subtle, yet disgusting, flavor that is James!" he said smiling at her.  
"I hear you." Lily agreed nodding her head in agreement.

"Hey! Stop ganging up on me!" James cut in.

"Err... what?" Jill said in disbelief.

"Hey, it's better than having to-- err well, better than having to do the original dare I planned."  
"Err, okay." She said shyly. Sirius got up and walked over to her as she stood up and looked up at him. He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips. They stood there for a moment, then separated and looked at each other. Then Jill sat down blushing bright pink, and Sirius returned to his seat whispering to James "Defiantly better than you."   
James looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, then shook his head slightly to himself. "Jill your turn."  
"Wuh? Oh! Yeah, um... Sammy, truth or dare?"  
"Truth, you guys are being vicious tonight."  
"Name the bases."   
"The what?"  
"The bases. You know, 1st base, 2nd base... how far a guy goes with a girl?"  
"Oh! right! err... 1st base is kissing, second base is making out, err, third base is, um... third base is going all the way, and fourth is doing 'it'." Sammy said a bit uncomfortably. "Err.. Bindi, truth or dare."  
"Truth." she replied simply.   
"Okay... um... we all know that Remus likes you, but do you like Remus?"  
"Yes!" she replied blushing a little. "Rebby, truth or dare."  
"Truth..."   
"Okay, if you were stuck on an island with three boys and you had to kill one off, marry one and have a one night stand with one of them, which would you do for which? The boys are Sirius, James, and Peter."  
"Hmm... First I'd kill Peter, then I'd kill myself." she said simply.  
"Why would you do that?" Bindi asked.  
"Because even one of their best friends couldn't stand living on that island with them without going crazy, so I'm sparing him and myself the therapist bills."   
"Hey!" Sirius and James chorused at the same time.   
"You got that right!" Lily chimed in.  
"Okay Rebby, your turn." Lily added hurriedly cutting off any argument from Sirius or James.  
"Okay, Lily, Truth or Dare?"   
"Huh? uh... truth."  
"Goody! I was hoping you would choose that! The thing is I'm a little confused on your relationship to James. You say you don't like him, but then you danced with him, and kissed him, and then you say he is a good kisser. Earlier you were ready to hit him at a moments notice. What the crap is going on there?"

Lily stared at Rebby and blinked a couple times "Ok... that was rather blunt. Uh... let's see... The only relationship I have with James, if you can call it a relationship, is being his neighbor. I don't like him in any way. As matter of fact, the only reason I came to his birthday party was because he asked if I wanted to come in front of my mom and she forced me to. I danced with him because he asked and I wanted to dance, and I kissed him because it was in the rules of the game."  
"Then why did you say he was a good kisser?"  
"Because he is. But answer me this: why are you so interested in my relationship with James?"  
"I... erm... uh... I mean I... I was just curious is all." she replied blushing and looking at her toes.  
Lily smiled at her and rolled her eyes "Okay, now it's my turn! Who wants to go next?"   
"Oh! Me! Me! I do! pick me!" Becca burst out.  
"No! pick me!" Jill yelled as well.  
"I wanna go too! pick me!" Sirius joined them. Soon everybody except Andrew and James had joined as well.  
"Well, James you're being awfully quiet. I think I'll pick you. Truth or dare?"  
James looked at Lily silently, blinked once, then answered "Truth."   
"Really? Funny, I thought you'd pick dare. Are you going soft or something?"  
"Nooooooo... I'm just not stupid enough to take a dare from someone who just said they don't like me. Besides, knowing you, you'd come up with something completely outrageous." at this comment Lily smacked him in the back of the head. "And brutal, did I mention brutal?"  
"Why I ought to... oooh... never mind." 'Now what can I ask him that will be incredibly embarrassing for him?' she thought to herself 'I KNOW! I'll make him tell them about his most embarrassing moment! And if it's not good enough, then he'll have to tell them about that time at swimming lessons! hehehehe!'  
"What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?"  
"Hmmmm... I'm not sure... I've been in a lot of embarrassing situations..." James continued to think about it for a moment. Then Sirius decided that he would try to help him decide which situation was most embarrassing. Out loud.

"What about that time when you were trying to impress that girl and be all smooth and stuff and then walked right into a stop sign?"  
A few people started giggling and James blushed a little and looked meaningfully at Sirius. "Uh... no, not the worst that's happened to me..."  
"Okay... then what about that time you accidentally walked in on that girl while she was in the restroom at that party?"  
James blushed a little more and glared at Sirius. "Hey, Sirius?"  
"Yeah?"  
"SHUT UP!"  
"Yowch!" Sirius yelped after James punched him in the arm. "Okay." Sirius fell silent as did all the people who had been laughing at him.  
"Okay... the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me... was... Oh! I know! Lily you probably remember this. The time I dived off the high-dive when I was 10 and my swim trunks came off." he completed this scratching his neck embarrassingly and looking at the ground. Lily could tell he was blushing so much that his face was probably bright red.  
"Oh my gosh! Did that really happen?" Jill asked looking at Lily expectantly.  
Lily smiled and answered "Yep. We were at a public pool and he jumped off and lost them. And after he realized that he'd lost his trunks, he yelled at some random kids to bring him his towel, but they wouldn't, so he asked someone else and they brought him his towel. He wrapped it around himself and ran off to the locker rooms, only, instead of reading the sign on the door that said 'pull', he walked right into it and fell on his butt. Then he noticed that it was the girl's locker rooms and scrambled up and ran into the boys lockers. It was hilarious. He hid in there for the rest of the day. Kept refusing to come out when it was time to go home because he had come with me and my sister Petunia, and he didn't want to face us laughing at him the entire way home." Lily finished, laughing hysterically.

James was now a bright shade of red and laughing his head off in remembrance of the occasion. "I must admit, that was the-" laugh "most horrifying thing that ever happened to me. That's why I've never been to a public pool since." Laugh, laugh "Actually that's the reason we had the pool built; I loved swimming but refused to go to the public pool."  
Everyone continued to laugh for a long time, then it was James turn to go. He took his time choosing a person. He sat scratching his chin with one hand his elbow resting in his other hand. He had one eye open trained on an invisible object in the sky and the other squinted closed. In all this could be considered a comical thinking pose, especially on James. Finally he decided who he wanted to ask.  
"Peter! Truth or dare!" he said sharply squinting his eyes into a sort of conspicuous up-to-no-good glare and focused it on Peter.  
Peter, who strangely resembled a rat in some ways, fidgeted around in his seat and answered "D-dare...?"  
James smiled evilly, and, added with his squinty eyed death glare, this made him look somewhere in between evil psychopath with a death wish for everything by ways of strange disasters and possessed by the devil. After seeing this look on James face, Peter's eyes widened and the left one began twitching. "I dare you, Peter, to-" but James was cut off by his mothers voice coming from the house.  
"Peter! Your mothers here to pick you up! And so is yours Sarah!." she went back in the house, but then popped her head back out again after a minute. "Bridget, your mom's here, too!"  
"Heheh. Well, I guess I got to go. Bye guys! Happy birthday again James!" Peter said nervously as he hurriedly got up and headed toward the door.  
"Guess that means we got to go, too." A random girl that Lily had not been introduced to said sadly. "Come on Sarah, mom's waiting." Bridget, and Sarah, who were apparently sisters, got up to leave then.  
"Bye James. Bye everyone." Sarah said as she, too, got up to leave.  
"Well... Pool time!" James yelled aloud, hopping up and running for the pool. Everyone else got into the pool as well through various forms of jumping, splashing and careful water testing.

After a few hours of swimming, the sun had fully set and brought with it oddly cold weather. Everyone climbed out of the pool and dried off, then dispersed to change back into dry clothes. After changing clothes they decided it was altogether too cold outside for the middle of summer and to go inside and watch a movie while they waited for parents to come and pick them up.

The remaining people slowly got up to leave as their parents arrived to pick them up. A short while later, during the movie, Lily remembered the present that she had gotten for James and hidden in her purse. She had forgotten to give it to him earlier. When she and Becca and Rebby were the last people left she followed the two girls towards the door and was followed by James.  
"Great party James!" Becca said, walking down the side walk towards a small blue car.

"Yeah! And Happy Birthday! Thanks for having us!" Rebby waved goodbye and followed Becca down the walk. The two got into the small blue car and it drove away.

"Well, see you." Lily said, heading out the door. James followed her.

"Where are you going?" Lily asked.  
"I'm walking you home." he answered simply opening the door for her.  
"Ooookaaaayyyy." she exited his house yelling a thanks back inside to Mrs. Potter for the party and everything and began walking home.  
"So did you enjoy the party?" James asked.  
"Yeah. It was fun. You need to give me Becca and Rebby's phone numbers, they were nice, I'd like to call them some time, maybe invite them to my birthday party. Jill and Bindi too."  
"Err... right. Sure." he replied awkwardly. "Umm.. well, thanks for coming and for the gift. Sorry about the whole spin the bottle thing."  
"Don't worry about it." she blushed a little at the memory of the game. Now they were at her back door, the front was locked, and Lily was going inside. "Oh! I almost forgot to give this to you. It completely slipped my mind earlier." She pulled the gift out of her purse and handed it to James. "Here. Well, see you bright and early tomorrow morning then I guess for our jog. If you're still up to it that is."  
James took the present with a surprised look on his face and replied to Lily "Uhh... yeah I'll be waiting for you by the back fence in the morning, and thanks for...err..." James went to open the present to find out what it was, but Lily cut him off.  
"Uh. No problem. Got to go. Chores to do. Bye!" she replied quickly and scuttled into the house before James had the chance to say anything or finish opening the gift.  
"Err. Okay.. um... bye..." he said turning and walking home with a confused look on his face still holding the half opened gift in his hand.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Surprises

For the next week Lily would get up very morning and go on her routine jog with James. Her present to him was not mentioned at all except for a small thanks the day after. On their jogs they talked some and got to know each other a little better; one might eve say that they became friends. The number one rule of their 'friendship', however, was to never ever talk about the games at the party, so as to avoid embarrassing moments for both and to keep long awkward pauses to a minimum.  
As the week ended Lily had James send an invitation to Becca, Rebby, Bindi, and Jill asking them to come to her eleventh birthday party. They all sent back notes to her saying that they would come and asking her what she wanted for her birthday and the details of the party. A couple, Jill in particular, asked if Remus and Sirius would be coming as well, so she sent them invitations too. The final count on who was coming to her party was: Bindi, Rebby, Becca, Remus, Jill, Sirius, Matthew, and James, along with a few people from her school or the neighborhood who were generally nice to her and a couple of girls she had met at one of her dad's business dinners earlier on that week.  
For her party her mother had reserved the party room of a local restaurant that had a hibachi grill and had a live band playing at night out on the deck. The band that was booked to play that night was called Hollow, they were a cover band that played mostly rock.

That night Lily got dressed in a pair of almost black jeans and an emerald green halter top and left the sanctuary of her room for the kitchen. In the kitchen her mother and father were rushing around picking up stuff last minute and making sure they had the camera and a lot of film for it and their keys (which they almost left in the house twice) before they leaving. Petunia was sitting in the living room watching TV waiting for Vernon Dursley to pick her up for their date that night. Once they finally got out the door, in the car, and on the road, they were relieved to find that they had missed the early afternoon traffic and that their drive to the restaurant would be quick and easy.  
When they arrived at the restaurant nobody was there yet for the party, just Lily and her parents and a few random customers. Lily's mother walked in and found the room they had reserved for the party and began placing balloons that said "Happy Birthday" on them all around the room in what she called "strategic placement", which basically meant that she was obsessive compulsive about things like exactly where "Happy Birthday" balloons were placed in a room. After a couple minutes of watching her mother's obsessing the amusement wore off and Lily said that she was going to the front of the restaurant to greet her guests as they came in the door.  
"Just make sure you hospitable to them dear, especially the girls from the dinner party!" Mrs. Evans called after her while straightening a balloon so that the words would face the inside of the room and not the wall.  
Lily walked outside to where the deck stage was at the back of the building, or was it the front, it was hard to tell. The main entrance to the Restaurant was actually in the back of the building, which was actually the front, though it didn't face the street. She sat down on a bench and ordered a coke from the waitress, then waited for people to arrive.  
The first to arrive was James and Sirius, who had come together. Then came Rebby and Becca. As the people arrived Lily pointed them in the direction of the party room and waited for more people. Once everyone was there Lily walked back inside, hoping that her mother wasn't still fixing balloons.

Lily's birthday party turned out to be a blast. Every one enjoyed the meal where they all sat around the hibachi grill while the cooking people made stir fry and stuff and tossed little balls of rice at them for them to catch in their mouths. Everybody loved the entertainment too, which, of course, was the band playing on the deck that night, called Hollow.  
Over all everyone had a great time. The two girls from the dinner party were automatically accepted by Jill and Becca, as they all read far too much and the one named Leah was obsessed with Becca's favorite author, Ken Follet. The girls from the neighbor hood also bonded with the girls from the dinner party, as did Bindi and Rebby, while the boys from the neighborhood, which included Matt, did a pretty good job at getting along with James, Sirius, and his ever growing group of friends. When the party was over and everyone had to go home, they said their good byes to the girls from the dinner party and the people from the neighborhood, excluding Matt and Leah, and left to go home.  
That night Lily was having Bindi, Becca, Jill, Rebby, and Leah stay the night at her house. Lily and her mother had moved all of her furniture to the sides of her room so that all of the girls could sleep on her bedroom floor. Little did Lily know that James had taken the opportunity to have all of his friends over again too. Sirius, Remus, Matt, and the rest of James's "gang" as it were, were all staying at his house for the night as well.  
The girls spent the entire night playing silly games like 'Truth or Truth', where you had to answer truthfully a question of one persons choosing, and 'Lemons' a game where you would say the name of one person, something you do with a lemon, another persons name, and a body part and put them all together into a sentence. They also played a game where you had to decide, out of the option of three boys, which you would marry, which you would kill off, and one which you would...Erm... 'go all the way' with. They had great fun with these games and were all on a rather large sugar high from eating too much candy, snacks they had smothered in Nutella, chocolate covered pretzels, and too many cokes and glasses of Kool-Aid, when all of a sudden, they all crashed. And not like a small fender bender type crash, this was more along the lines of 'no sugar... fuel gone... oh look a large cliff to drop over in my nice shiny car!' type crash. The only people who didn't just randomly fall into a sudden, unpredictable, sugar induced comma at three-thirty A.M., were Lily, Leah, and Becca. Leah decided that she was tired around four in the morning and went to sleep. Becca had had more sugar than everybody else, but for some reason did not go into a comatose like state that she probably wouldn't wake from until twelve the next day. Instead, Becca got the insane urge to draw a comic where she and this random person named Kelly visit a manga character in feudal era Japan. While Becca drew the comic on this small legal note pad, Lily randomly picked out a movie that Becca had brought and put it in her VCR. The movie was called 'Princess Mononoke', it was a Japanese anime and an incredibly good movie. At some point during this movie, Lily looked out the window and noticed that James light was still on. She moved over to the window to see why and realized that James had had the boys stay for the night as well.  
Lily shrugged her shoulders and laid back down on the edge of her bed, to tired and lazy at five in the morning to move to the center, and continued watching the movie. When the movie was just about to end she had become totally engrossed in it and didn't even notice the large bird that was sitting on the sill of her open window, she did however notice when the owl landed right next to her head and bit her ear. Lily screamed with shock and fell off her bed with a great thud. When she calmed down a little she got up from the floor to look at Becca's confused and inquisitive face.  
"That owl just bit my ear!" Lily said, more shocked that mad. "Wait... Why is there an owl in my room? And why aren't you, I don't know, in the least bit surprised by its being here?"  
"Huh?" said Becca looking back up from her comic, which she had continued when Lily got up from the floor seemingly fine. "Oh. Well I get owl post all the time, don't you? Oh, no, that's right, you're not a-... err... yeah so you wouldn't get owl post all that often would you. Well, anyways, don't just stand there go get your letter from him!"  
"Why would he have a letter for me? And what the heck is owl post? and what the heck am I not?"  
"Just open the ruddy letter! I bet it will explain the majority of your questions, and the others I can answer for you when you're finished reading it." Becca said, picking up the letter from the bed and handing it to Lily.  
"Okay, okay! Yeesh. Keep you pants on would ya'?" Lily took the letter from Becca and scrutinized the envelope. It was addressed to her in large loopy green ink:

Lily Marie Evans,  
Blue Bedroom at the Top of the Stairs,  
Number 6 Wiltshire Lane, London, England

On the back was a wax seal with a crest depicting a lion, a snake, an eagle, and a badger gather around a large H.  
"Well don't just stare at it! Open it up already!" Becca cried, excitement in her voice. "Open it before I have a coronary already!"  
Lily raised an eyebrow at her new-found friend and broke the seal opening the envelope. Inside were two thick pieces of parchment. She pulled them out and unfolded them reading the one on top first. It said:

Dear Ms. Lily Evans,  
I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Included in this envelope is your school supply list. All of these items may be purchased in Diagon Alley. If you have any questions, send word back with this owl,  
Deputy Headmistress,  
Professor M. MacGonagall

Lily's jaw dropped in shock, her eyes widening. She looked up at Becca and blinked.  
"Well? What does it say? Did you get into Hogwarts?" Becca asked hyperly. Lily was still in to much shock to speak, so she just handed the pages to Becca.

"YES!" Becca exclaimed. "I i_knew_/i I could sense the magic in you!"

"Err... Yay?" Lily replied uncertainly. "What's the rest of it say?"

"It's a list of supplies and books and such you'll be needing for school this year. Isn't this great?"

Lily was still in slight shock and didn't respond. Instead she took the second page from Becca and looked at the list. There were several odd objects that seemed strange to her, like a potions starter set and a cauldron. There were only two things that really caught her eye though. One of them was the wand. The list said that Lily needed a wand. When Lily saw this her eyes grew wider, if at all possible, and she looked up at Becca, who was still talking about how great the year was going to be, questioningly.

"Is-is this a joke? A wand? Witchcraft? What's going on here? Am I dreaming?"  
"Nope! You're not dreaming! You, my dear friend, are a witch!"  
"WHAT! I'm a WHAT?" Lily screeched louder than she should have, causing the owl that had delivered the letter to jump up and fly away and Rebby to sit bolt upright and look around dreamily. Rebby looked over at Lily and Becca, eyes glazed over in a sleepy haze, and a very educated and well planned phrase came out of her mouth "Huh? Watcha wan? I'm tired. Go abed." and with that her head fell back onto her pillow and a loud snore escaped her mouth.  
"Well that was...Erm..." Becca started.  
"Elaborate? Well timed? Funny?" Lily offered possible endings for her sentence.  
"More like hilarious." Becca stated very matter of factly, with a slight nod and a serious expression. Then she looked at Lily just as Lily looked at her, they gave each other a 'look' and cracked up laughing.

The next few weeks went by in a blur. Lily found out from Becca that almost all of the people that were at James's party were witches and wizards and that they would be attending Hogwarts too. When Lily had told her parents her mother had given Lily a blank look, then a small smile of derision. Her father had given her a look of pity before changing it to a smile as well and telling her he was happy for her. Lily didn't understand why they reacted this way, but she didn't care; their weird reactions were probably just them trying to accept that magic was real, it is harder for adults to accept than children you know. The one reaction that truly surprised Lily was Petunia's. Instead of yelling at her that she was a freak, Petunia looked slightly shocked at Lily's announcement, then gave her an excited smile and barraged her with questions about it. She was truly curious about everything to do with the wizarding world and had a lot of questions that Lily, new to this strange world as well, couldn't answer. Petunia's acceptance of Lily's 'little gift', as they had begun to refer to it, confused but delighted Lily. The chance that she and her older sister, the girl she had always secretly admired, the possibility of them actually getting along for once and bonding over something like this gave Lily a wonderful feeling inside, like a million butterflies in her stomach trying to escape.  
Towards the end of July Lily got a letter from Becca asking if she wanted to come with her and Rebby to Diagon Alley and stay the night. Rebby, sadly, couldn't come at the last minute because she was visiting a relative, but Lily's parents agreed and a week later Lily was sitting in her room, a back pack with everything she would need for the sleepover in the corner on the floor. Lily was yet again staring out of her window with a distant look in her eyes. She was daydreaming about Hogwarts and what it would be like there. She wondered if she would be any good at this whole magic business and whether she would make any friends there. 'Lily! Of course you'll have friends there! Becca is your friend and she's going to be there!'. Though this thought did sooth her mind a little, the general feeling of uneasiness was still present.  
At one o'clock Becca and her parents arrived to take Lily to Diagon Alley. They traveled by car, but Lily had an idea that this car was not normal, because it had the strange habit of suddenly jumping ahead of large amounts of traffic without anyone's notice. Finally they pulled up in front of an old pub and parked the car. The pub looked a little on the worn down side, the rusty sign over the door which said "The Leaky Caldron" was swinging back and forth on its hinges emitting a loud squeaking noise. They entered the pub and began walking through the various tables to the back of the room. The pub itself contained many strange people dressed in different colored robes having loud conversations and talking jovially with their friends while eating their lunch and a couple of other odd creatures who were sitting mostly in the shadows sipping some foreign drink and glaring at everybody that entered the pub. When they had exited the pub through a back door Lily found herself, Becca, and Becca's parents in a small alley behind the pub where the trash bins were kept. Just when Lily was about to say something along the lines of 'Why the heck are we out here?' Mr. Burns pulled out a weirdly shaped stick and taped a sequence of the bricks on the back wall of the alley next to the trash bins. Lily's jaw dropped in amazement as the wall of the alley began to curl back and open up presenting them with a large arch to walk through.  
"Welcome, Lily Evans, to Diagon Alley!" Becca stated while giving a sarcastic sweeping bow to her. When Lily continued to stare at the people inside the alley, Becca grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the arch and into the throng of people who were doing their shopping and such in Diagon Alley. "Well, come on, already! Let's go exchange your money so we can get some ice cream! Mum, dad, we'll see you later!" With that she dragged Lily down the street.

When they reached the huge white stone building that was Grongots Bank, Lily stood and stared at it for a bit with her jaw agape. At least, until Becca yelled something completely random and started sprinting towards the big doors to the building, tugging Lily along with her. The doors of the building were opened by two short creatures with straggly bits of hair on their heads and short pointy ears who were wearing black butler type suits. When they had passed inside the building and out of earshot of the creatures Lily asked quietly "What were those?"  
"Huh? What were what? Oh! You mean them?" she gestured over her shoulder at the doors where the creatures were standing "They're Goblins. The Goblins run the bank. They're brutal, they are, or so says most people. Just don't get them mad. You want to just exchange money or do you want to get a Gringots account as well?"  
"I think I'll get an account so I can keep some money here in case of emergencies."  
"Good idea. Now let's see, which counter... Ah-hah! here it is." Becca walked over to a short counter with a relatively tall Goblin, or at least compared to the other goblins, standing behind it.  
"May I help you ladies?" the goblin asked, looking them over like he was checking to make sure they weren't going to make trouble.  
"Yes. My friend here would like to open an account here, and she needs to change her money as well."  
"Name please?" the goblin asked pulling out a important looking form and a quill.  
"Lily Marie Evans."  
"Age?"  
"Eleven."  
"How much will you be placing into your account?"  
"Ummm... I'm not exactly sure. I know it's over a thousand pounds. I haven't counted it in a while."  
"Over a thousand pounds! Lily! Where did you get all that money?!" Becca exclaimed in shock.  
"Well my dad gave me about 350 pounds and the rest is my savings since I was about... 5 years old. I only have so much because my dad and mum put it in a muggle bank so it could gain interest for me when I was about 6."  
"May I see the money please?" the goblin asked, holding out his hand for the money, all business.  
Lily glanced at Becca then back at the goblin and pulled out a tin from her purse. "It's all in there, it wouldn't fit into my wallet."  
"I wonder why not." Becca commented sarcastically, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms.  
"Haw, haw, very funny. Here you go." Lily handed the tin to the goblin as a balance appeared on his desk. He placed the tin on the balance then after writing down the measurements handed it back to her.  
"Here you go, and here is you key, vault number 529. The goblin at the very back will give you a pouch to put some money in and send you down with one of the other goblins."  
"Thank you." Lily replied as she and Becca turned and left the counter and headed further into the building towards the back. They approached a tall podium with another small goblin behind it.  
"Yes?" he asked imprudently.  
"I would like to visit my vault, please." Lily replied.  
"Same here." came Becca "I need to get some money out for the books."  
"Keys please." the goblin grunted, as he took their keys he yelled over his shoulder at someone. "Grogin! Two for the carts!" A short fat goblin came striding over and took the keys from the one behind the podium.  
"Yes sir." he replied, then turned to them. "Come along, are you just making a withdraw?"  
"I am, but she needs to put the money in her vault first." said Becca.  
"Alright then, first off vault number 626, and that would be..."  
"Me." said Becca while climbing into a small cart that had just rolled up to them. The cart somewhat resembled a roller coaster seat. Lily followed Becca's example and climbed into the cart and fastened her seat belt. The goblin go in next and reached for a lever to pull. "Hold on tight." Becca said, a mischievous light in her eyes. Lily had just enough time to wonder what that light in her eyes was all about before the cart took off with an incredible speed and started winding through the passages.

Lily and Becca both gripped the edges of theirs seats as they sped down the twisting winding passages at full speed. Lily looked over at Becca and yelled "This is bloody brilliant! Just like a roller coaster!". Becca gave her a look that said 'what are you? crazy?' and gripped the side of the cart tighter as they took a turn at full speed nearly causing them to tip over on their side. They finally stopped with a sudden lurch in front of a large black door. Lily watched as both Becca and the goblin hopped out of the cart and walked up to the door. The door had no door knob or lock and Lily was wondering how he was supposed to open it when he ran his long bony forefinger along the center of the door and a key hole appeared. He held out his hand and Becca gave him something which he placed in the key hole and turned successfully opening the door to Becca's vault. Becca disappeared inside her vault for a few moments and when she returned she was carrying a small leather draw-string pouch filled to the brim with what looked like coins. Both she and the goblin got back into the cart and they headed off again down the seemingly endless passages.  
When next they stopped they were in front of another large black door much like the one to Becca's vault. "Vault number 529." the goblin announced as he hopped out of the cart again. Lily watched as he walked up to the door and ran his finger down it just as he had done with Becca's vault door. Becca gave her a small shove that told her to get her arse out of the cart and get some money so that they could get to the shopping portion of their visit to Diagon Alley. Lily stepped cautiously out of the cart onto the slightly slanted platform and walked over to her vault door. The goblin held out his hand and she looked at it confused. "Your key, please, miss."  
"Oh!" she said and handed him the key the goblin at the counter had given her. He continued opening her vault in the same fashion as he had Becca's and when Lily stepped inside it she gasped at the sight she saw. There were piles of gold, silver, and bronze coins all over the floor and in the center a pedestal with a velvet red cloth over it for any precious objects to be placed on. Becca yelled for her to hurry up pulling her out of her wonderment. She looked to her right and saw on the wall next to the door a small leather pouch just like Becca's. She quickly took it off of its hook and scooped handfuls of the coins into it then pulled the draw-strings tight and headed back outside the vault and jumped into the cart. As the goblin locked her vault she turned to Becca and asked about the strange coins.  
"Well its wizarding money of course. The gold ones are galleons, the bronze are knuts, and the silver ones are sickles. I'll explain their worth later." she replied as the goblin hopped back into the cart and handed Lily her key. He threw down the lever and they sped off again.

A short and quick, but wild, cart ride later they were walking down the steps that led into Gringots as Becca explained the wizarding coin system to Lily. Lily thought to herself 'and I'm expected to remember this new system of money? Great, just great.' "So where to next?" Lily asked Becca as she finished her explanation.  
"Why don't we go get our books first?"  
"Sounds good to me!" The two of them went to Flourish and Blotts first for their books. Next they went to Madame Malkins, the new robe store, for their school robes, then they headed to the apothecary for their cauldron and potions' supplies. As they were walking down the street discussing where to go next Becca's stomach growled.  
"Guess I'm hungry! What do ya' say we go eat now?"  
"Fine with me! I'm a bit pekish myself."  
"Well where do you want to go? There's a deli that ways, and back there is a new little cafe that just opened, or we could go back to the Leaky Cauldron, they have food there, or we could go to the ice cream parlor, its right there next to the deli." Becca pointed out the shops as she told Lily about them.  
"Well, I could go for a Rueben at the deli, or maybe a triple scoop strawberry ice cream cone?" she said looking over at Becca who promptly grabbed her hand and dragged her to the ice cream parlor after saying, well, yelling, two words.  
"ICE CREAM!"  
When they arrived at Florean Fortesque's Ice Cream Parlor Becca dashed up to the counter and began to give their order. "Hi, she'll take a triple scoop strawberry cone-"  
"What type of cone?" the man behind the counter asked kindly.  
"A large chocolate covered waffle cone please, and I'll take a quadruple scoop chocolate mint with rainbow sprinkles and fudge on a chocolate covered waffle cone please!" she continued her order without even pausing to ask Lily what kind of cone she wanted.  
"Here you go, that'll be 12 sickles, please. Thank you, and have a nice day now." the man said as he handed them their ice cream cones and they paid him. Then they turned and found themselves a seat outside the shop at one of the umbrella covered tables. After Becca had eaten half of her ice cream and Lily had barely finished one scoop Lily took out her supplies list to see what else she needed to get.  
"We, already got our books, our potions ingredients, our cauldrons, and our robes. All that's left is our telescope and brass scales, and our wands." Lily said.  
"Oh, boy! I can't wait to get my wand! And we need to stop by the pet store and the Owl Emporium as well, I've been saving up my money so that I can get a pet to take with me to Hogwarts as well!" Becca added excitedly.  
"Okay, that sounds good." Lily responded. After they finished their ice cream they picked up their bags full of already purchased items and headed for a store nearby where they bought their telescopes and a couple of nice sets of brass scales. Next they headed for the wand shop. As they entered Lily looked up at the sign above the door which read 'i_Ollivanders Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C._/I "Have they really been around i_that/i_ long?" Lily asked incredulously. Becca shrugged her shoulders in response and stepped into the building.  
The room seemed small. Every inch of every wall was covered in shelves where hundreds upon hundreds of small boxes were stacked on top of each other. They walked up to the small counter at the back of the store and rang a bell on top of it. As they waited Lily peered into the back of the building where row upon row of shelves held hundreds more of these small boxes.  
"Hello there Miss Burns and, Miss Evans I presume?" said a voice from their right making them jump. An old man with white hair came out of a door that was to their right that they had not noticed before. "Here for your wands I presume? I remember your mother's wand Miss Burns, 7 inches, oak, hair from a unicorn. It was good for transfiguration I believe. And your father's, 9 and one half inches, yew, feather from a very wild hippogriff if I remember correctly, the wand was good for defense. You, Miss Evans, are a new customer, yours shall be an intriguing wand to find, indeed."  
"H-how did you know my name?" Lily asked confused and slightly awed.  
"I know a great many things, Miss Evans, that I should not." he replied simply, then turned to Becca "Miss Burns, I think I'll start with you, you should be slightly simpler to find. Let's see... Ah, yes, maybe this..." Mr. Ollivander began searching the walls and pulling out boxes which Lily soon learned contained wands of all sizes and types. After a few tries Becca found one that suited her and Mr. Ollivander turned to Lily. " Ah, yes. Good, good. Eight and three quarters of an inch, redwood, a phoenix feather core, good for defense I believe. A very nice wand, indeed. Your turn Miss Evans. I think we should start with... this one." he said as he pulled a box off of the shelf right behind the counter. Lily tried several wands and none of them seemed to suit her. After about half an hour of searching for a wand, Lily was growing both bored and anxious. Becca had seated herself on a small two person bench just outside of the store and was admiring her new wand when Lily finally found the right one. "Here you go, Willow, nine and one third of an inch, hippogriff feather core, good for charms. Go on and give it a wave deary." Lily sighed and for it seemed the hundredth time that day, she waved the wand and, unlike all of the others which had cause some sort of havoc or did nothing at all, this wand spouted brilliant green sparks. Mr. Ollivander clapped his hands and smiled "Ah, yes! Finally!" Lily paid for her wand and was about to leave when Mr. Ollivander called to her "Oh, and Miss Evans! Please tell Mr. Potter when you see him that if he doesn't get his tucus in here soon he might miss his chance to buy his wand before school begins."  
"How did you... never mind, I don't want to know. I'll tell him for you sir. It was nice to meet you. Good bye!" Lily replied and left his shop. "All done!" she said to Becca as she came out the door.  
"Well it took you long enough! Why'd it take you so long to find your wand?" Becca asked.  
"Well, to quote Mr. Ollivander 'the wand chooses the wizard or in your case, the witch' I guess they just couldn't' make up their minds!" they laughed slightly at this. "So what's left?"  
"All that's left now is the pet shop and the Owl Emporium. Which is first?"  
"I don't care, you pick."  
"Okay then... off to the Owl Emporium it is then!" Becca said picking up her bags and practically skipping off towards the store.  
"Yeesh. I sure know how to pick my friends, huh?" she said to herself, quickly following after Becca.

They entered Eyelops Owl Emporium to the ring of a bell followed a large amount of squawking and feather rustling in cages. Lily looked around and saw a few rows of shelves with cages sitting on them most of which contained owls of some sort. On one shelf there were bags of owl treats and empty cages and other such things that were 'needed' for the care taking of owls. Becca and Lily wandered around the store and looked at all of the different types owls in their cages. Lily saw a couple of owls that she liked, but didn't want to buy one until she looked in the other pet store, just in case she decided she wanted a different pet instead. Becca had picked out a beautiful medium sized tawny owl which she had given to the man at the counter and requested for him to hold onto until she came back because she had to 'go get more money from her parents' which meant she wanted to go look at the other pets too.  
They left the Owl Emporium and headed a couple of stores down to a large pet store. Inside there were many different types of pets that Lily didn't recognize. She looked in the cages at funny lizards with two heads and rats that did back flips and jumped rope. She passed the small cages and came to the cats. Many of them sat patiently looking back at Lily and Becca as they peered in at them through the metal bars.  
"So what do you think? Should I get a cat or an owl? I've always liked cats, but that owl was so cute, and it seemed to be very well mannered as well." Becca asked Lily as they continued to look at various cats in their cages.  
"Well, have any of the cats really interested you? You know, did you feel an instant bond or liking with them like you did the owl?"  
"Yes."  
"Well I was going to say that I think you should get the owl since you were drawn to it, but since your attached to a cat as well... Wait, which cat?"  
"The one standing right in front of your face giving you a look that I think probably means 'what a stupid witch.'" Becca rolled her eyes and Lily looked up at the shelf.

Sitting there gazing at Lily with unblinking eyes was a small blue point Siamese cat. Lily had seen her earlier and though she was a statue, but now she realized that what she had thought was a statue was actually alive as the cat blinked its eyes at her lazily, then turned and began to clean her backside as if it were a comment on Lily's mental capabilities. "Well, that's interesting..." Lily wasn't referring to the cat's human-like personality, but the fact that the cat had bright blue eyes the exact same color as Becca's. "If I were you, I'd go with the cat... Unless you can get both the cat and the owl. This cat seems a bit... Different... Smarter than the others. I think she'd be an interesting pet."

"Good point... I'll ask my parents about the owl later, but for now I think I'll get the cat." Becca scooped up the cat mid cleaning, a thing the cat did not appreciate, and walked over to the counter with her. Lily followed. "So what are you going to get?"

"I'm not sure. I saw a couple of owls that I liked a little, but I want to finish looking through the store first. Why don't you go ahead and get your cat some things, like a littler box or whatever, while I look about the store some more?" Lily suggested.  
"I probably should. I'll be right back though."  
"Okay." Lily replied turning back to the cages. As she continued looking a man that worked there came up to her.  
"May I help you find something ma'am?" he asked.  
"Yes, well, I'm looking for a pet to take with me to Hogwarts this year. I don't want a rat or a lizard or anything like that. I was thinking maybe a cat. But none of these really seem to be what I'm looking for."  
"Well, exactly what kind of cat are you looking for?"  
"I don't know. Do you have any others?"  
"Yes, Ma'am, there are some more cats back this way. Follow me and I'll show you to them." the man turned around after making sure that Lily was going to follow him and headed towards the back of the store. When he got to the end of the first row he turned right and headed along it for a couple of rows. As Lily passed by these rows she glanced down them curiously, getting a glimpse of a few odd creatures. They reached the back of the store and Lily looked at the other cats, but to no avail. None of the cats there interested her. She thanked the man for his trouble, waited for Becca to finish buying her new cat's food, collar, and other supplies, then the two left the store and went back to the Owl Emporium a second time. Becca explained to the guy at the desk that she would need him to hold the owl for a little longer as she hadn't been able to find her parents just yet, then the two wandered about the store some more while Lily looked at the owls yet again. This time, as they passed by one of the many rows, she caught sight of two big green eyes.  
"Wait." she said to the Becca "Just a second." she turned back around and walked back into the row to where she had seen the green eyes and was met by... bright blue ones? 'That's odd' she thought to herself as she looked at the owl that was inside of the cage she was in front of. It was a snowy owl, big and white and fluffy. "Can I see him?" she asked the man who had walked over, he wore a name tag that said he worked in the store and that his name was Bob.  
"Sure. We've had some trouble selling him for some reason. People take a look in his eyes and tend to run, well, walk away like they've seen enough." the man said as he opened the cage and brought the owl out. "He's a pureblooded Siberian Snow Owl. About nine weeks old."  
"Isn't he a bit big for nine weeks?" she asked the man. She had never seen a baby owl before, but she had a vague idea that they weren't normally this large at nine weeks.  
"No, he's actually a little small, this particular breed grows faster than some owls. And he still has quite a bit of growing to do, just take a look at his wings." she did and noticed that his wings were huge in proportion to the rest of his body. This owl had quite a bit of catching up to do. 'Sort of like I do in the wizarding world' she thought. That's when the owl looked straight at her and cocked it's head to one side and she saw the bright green eyes again. The owl's eyes had changed color in an instant from blue to green. She stared into it and it stared back. Their staring was so intense that she was surprised when it suddenly broke eye contact and pecked her face managing to land a direct hit on the end of her nose "Arggg..." she growled as she rubbed her nose. She took another look at the owl, caught another glimpse of the big bright green eye that with held an intense overwhelming sense of... something. "I'll take him." she told the man still looking at the owl.  
"Are you sure miss?"

"Yes, very much so."

"Alright then." Then man picked up the cage and took it to the counter where Lily paid for her new owl and all the little necessities that went with owning an owl, like treats and such.

"Will that be all Ma'am?"  
"Yes, I believe so." she replied taking out her money pouch. And paying the rather high amount for her owl and all of his accessories. Becca and Lily left the store and headed back to the Leaky Cauldron. Lily looked at her watch. "We better hurry up or we're going to be late meeting your parents." and with that they hurried off, well, hurried off as much as one can while burdened by two pets plus several shopping bags, to meet Becca's parents.

After a short discussion, Becca managed to convince her parents to let her get a cat and an owl, then ran off to the Owl Emporium to buy the tawny she had seen earlier. When she came back laden with owl and owl necessities, the four of them and the three new pets left Diagon Alley headed for Becca's house.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – Blood and Snakes

The day before Lily was to go to Hogwarts she was incredibly hyper.

We're not talking regular hyper, we're talking bouncing off the walls, everything is funny, quadruple espresso, way too much sugar, and nervous hyper all combined into one giant bundle of lovely hyper-ness. All morning she annoyed Petunia by jumping around and randomly ad-libbing to songs like 'It's Raining' or 'Jingle Bell's' with song lyrics about her going to a school with lots of cool magical stuff and ones about her new pet, which her parents had consented for her to keep, and every now and then she just sang out what she was doing at the moment at random. Petunia had been trying to finish her summer school assignments before they were due the next week and finally, after having put up with the random singing for four solid hours, left in a huff for the library muttering under her breath about 'stupid sisters' and 'evil schools'. During lunch her mother came home from socializing with the neighbors and had some lunch with Lily. Lily managed to annoy her by asking her twenty thousand questions about twenty thousand random things in the matter of about five minutes. All during lunch Lily basically never shut up. She just kept rambling on about this, that, and the other thing. That night when her father returned home she talked his ears off as well and then, after he had gone to his office to 'work', she kept knocking on the door and interrupting him asking him about something unimportant or randomly reminiscing about something that happened when she was four. 

As a matter of fact, the only person that she didn't completely annoy that day was James. When they had gone on their usual morning jog and had stretched later she would randomly start asking him questions about different wizarding things. He would answer all of her questions quickly and ramble on about that particular subject until she asked another question, and another. Lily couldn't tell, but according to anyone else, James was just as hyper as Lily. Well... almost. Later that afternoon Lily had done all of her chores and was about to wash her mum's car as well when James came over and offered to help her. She wasn't going to let him help until he reminded her that the more people that helped, the faster it would get cleaned. When he pointed this out, she immediately agreed to let him help. James's helping resulted in Lily becoming completely soaked by the hose when James had 'accidentally' sprayed her with it. After a short skirmish during which Lily stole the hose and sprayed James with it then ran away as he chased after her trying to give her a muddy hug she managed to slip in a puddle and fall in the mud herself. After a long bout of laughter from the both of them, they went inside their homes to change clothes. When they came back they spent the rest of the afternoon talking about quidditch, which James had confessed was what he was really training for. 

"I really wish that first years could have their own brooms though. I don't know how I'll survive without flying for a whole school year." James remarked to Lily. 

"We don't get to fly?" 

"Well, we get to, but only during flying lessons, and those only last a few weeks." When James's parents came home he had to go and do the chores he had been neglecting and so Lily was left to wait by herself for half an hour for her parents and Petunia to come home. 

That night, when Lily went to bed, she dreamed a very strange dream of brooms and flying, though she couldn't remember it the next day.

"Hurry and get up or we're going to be late!" this was what Lily's parents woke up to the next morning. Well, this is what her mother woke up to. Lily's father had left early that morning at around five o'clock to catch a flight to Florida for the international conference between the different branches of Grunnings Drills Inc. Lily poked her mother in the side while emitting a loud beeping sound from her mouth making her mother sit straight up in bed and scream something about turning off the bloody alarm.

"Come on mum, if you don't get up and get dressed soon we might be late!" 

"Hmmm...? oh... OH! Yes, dear. Thank you for waking me!" she glanced at the alarm clock she never used "OH no! I've overslept again!"

Lily rolled her eyes and left the room yelling back to her mother, who was hurriedly gathering an outfit and heading for the shower, that she would make them some breakfast. 

Lily went down to the kitchen and got out a pan and some eggs and bacon. Lily prepared breakfast and then went upstairs to Petunia's room to wake her. She was greeted by a loud grunt and a threat to be beat to a pulp and locked in the sewer if she didn't go away. Lily cracked the door to Petunia's room and told her that breakfast was ready and that if she was coming with her and mum to get her butt out of bed. Petunia responded by lifting the pillow off of her head revealing a head full of curlers and glaring at her sister. Lily got the message and went to check on if her mother was ready yet. "Mum? Breakfast is ready. Mum?" Lily looked around the room, then in the bathroom. Her mother wasn't there. She went downstairs and looked in the kitchen and the living room, then even in the basement. Her mother was no where to be found. As Lily passed back through the kitchen on her way to check her mother's room again, she noticed that there was a dirty plate and glass in the sink and a note on the refrigerator. Lily walked over to the note and read it. 

_Lily and Petunia,  
_

_Gone to shop for outfit for neighborhood annual casino night. Will be back by four. Leave a note if you need to go out. Please don't kill each other. Breakfast was lovely Lily,  
_

_Love,  
_

_Mom_

"Aw hell." Lily said. Lily read through the note again and repeated her first comment. "Bloody hell!" she said with a mixture of annoyance, anger, and mainly disappointment. She couldn't believe that her mother had forgotten all about her going to Hogwarts today, ESPECIALLY after she had continuously reminded the entire family about it the night before. "Oh shit." this time more calmly "What am I going to do?! How am I going to get to Hogwarts?" Lily thought about taking the bus "no that'll take to long." a cab "I don't trust them, plus I probably don't have enough money for one." and about chucking herself out of her bedroom window. "No... That wouldn't help... that'll just break a few bones... and it might hurt... it'd be funny if James threw HIMself out his win-" then it dawned on Lily. The only way she was going to get to Hogwarts on time was if she went with James. James Potter. The boy who, though he had been uncharacteristically nice recently, was still a major git and all around pain in the arse. "Oh shit..." she mumbled to herself as she headed next door to the Potter's front door. 

She rang the door bell and waited. She rang it again and waited. She rang it five or six times consecutively as quickly as possible and heard voices from inside the house. "JAMES! Get out of the bloody bed and get ready! NOW! Honey, will you get the door please?!" came Mrs. Potter's voice from, Lily guessed, the kitchen. 

"Yes, dear!" Mr. Potter answered then she heard him walking towards the door, and what sounded like something or someone falling down the stairs. 

"I got it!" she heard James yell. Then the door opened and James was standing there one arm in his shirt sleeve, pants pulled up but not buttoned or zipped, and two different colored socks on. His reaction was that of shock, surprise, and... something else. "H-hi! Oh! Lily! I wasn't expecting you. You DO know that it's September first right?" 

"Yes, James." 

"And that we're supposed to go to Hogwarts today?" 

"Yes, James." 

"So why are you on my doorstep?" 

"Because, James, my dearest father is on a business trip, and my oh-so-loving mother forgot all about the fact that I'm going to school today and went shopping, and I therefore have no ride." she finished with a pleasant smile on her face. "Oh, and you have on two different colored socks." 

"Huh?" James looked down at his feet and noticed that he had on a blue sock and a purple one and also the fact that his pants weren't properly fastened. "Oops." He zipped and buttoned his pants. 

"Why do you have purple socks anyways?" 

"Oh, err... that's a long story. You need a ride? You want to come with us?" 

"No, I just thought I'd come over and complain about it for a while then go back home and watch some T.V. Of course I want a ride, you twit!" 

"Yikes! Sorry... you're in a bad mood today, aren't you?" Lily glared at him. "Yeah, right, well, you can come with us I suppose. HEY MUM! IT'S LILY! SHE NEEDS A RIDE TO KINGS CROSS! CAN SHE RIDE WITH US?" he yelled to his mother who stuck her head out from behind the door to the kitchen and looked at Lily and James with his still shirt half on. 

"Yes, dear, that's fine, and put your shirt on!" she replied and returned to the kitchen. 

James looked puzzled for a moment, and then realized that he hadn't finished putting on his shirt yet. "Oh! Right..." he fixed his shirt. Lily snickered at him and he returned his attention to her. "Okay, well come on in. Wait. Where's your stuff?" 

"Oh, it's at home. I'll go get it and I'll be back over in a flash." 

"Okay. And come to the back door, it's unlocked." 

Lily jogged back to her house and gathered her trunk, her owl, Alaizabel, and her backpack, which she had stuffed with random things that wouldn't fit into her trunk, and compiled them into her kitchen. She hurriedly wrote a note to her mum and dad explaining why she wasn't there and stuck it to the fridge with a magnet. She persuaded Alaizabel into her cage, then picked up one end of her trunk and started to drag it over to James' house with Alaizabel on top of it. She'd gotten about halfway there when she was met by James who said he'd saw her trying to drag it over and thought he'd lend a helping hand. 

Once they got back to James's house Lily sat down at the kitchen table and waited while James began to help himself to some of the food on the table. Lily realized that she had forgotten to eat her breakfast in her hurry and began to get up to go eat some of it. "Where are ya' going?" James asked. 

"I forgot to eat my breakfast next door and I was ju-" she couldn't finish her sentence because James had shoved a piece of toast into her mouth. 

"You should have just said you were hungry. It's not like I'm going to refuse to feed you." He said. 

"Okay." she replied after swallowing the large bite of toast she had had to bite off in order to get the rest of toast out of her mouth. "But I left a mess and mom and dad will be mad if I don-" Lily was once again interrupted, but this time by a link sausage. 

"Your sister isn't helpless, she can clean it up. It's not like she does anything else to help out. Now eat." He said handing her an empty plate and piling eggs, bacon, sausages, and toast on it. 

"You really think I'm going to eat all of that?" she said staring at the mountain of food in front of her. 

"I am." he said adding more food to his plate. Lily rolled her eyes at him and began eating some sausage and eggs. While she ate she thought about what the trip to Hogwarts would be like, what Hogwarts would be like, and then the fact that she would have to ride to the train station with James Potter. 'Urgh. I hate my parents. They never remember anything that they're supposed to do with me and Petunia. Like that time we were supposed to go to the zoo for Petunia's birthday. They forgot all about it and went to the boating club instead without us. I can't believe I'm going to have to put up with James the entire car ride though, this sucks. He sure is acting weird though lately, especially today.' She looked over at James who was silently eating his seventh or eighth piece of toast with strawberry jam on top and furrowed her eyebrows. 

"What?" he asked, smirking once he noticed her gaze was directed at him. 

"Oh, nothing." she replied turning away. "Just trying to figure you out Potter, that's all." 

"You know, you shouldn't attempt the impossible. If you succeed, everything else you do will seem unimportant in comparison." he replied, his smile growing to the corners of his eyes. 

"What are you smiling about?" she scoffed in a joking manner. 

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all." he said, his eye's lingered on her face for a moment longer, then fell to his plate of food again as he ate another sausage still smirking. 

"Okay, James, Lily, it's time to go. Let's get your stuff out to the car." Mr. Potter said popping his head into the room and grabbing Lily's trunk. He carried it out of the room as Lily stood up and collected Alaizabel preparing to follow him out. Then she noticed that James was still just sitting there, chewing, with a blissful smile on his face. 

"Come on, James. Lets go." she said as she turned to leave again but then noticed that James still hadn't moved to get up. "One thing is for sure, James, no one will EVER figure you out." she shook her head and contemplated how to snap him out of his daydream. 'Hmmmm... this should do it...' she thought as she smirked and walked over to him. "Ja-ames..." she whispered in his ear in a sweet voice. No reaction. "Jaaaa-aaaames..." she whispered again in a sing song-y sweet voice. Still no response, or so she thought. James was actually awakened from his daydream the second time she had said his name, but he swallowed then pretended to still be day dreaming. 'Well this is going to be harder than I thought. I know what I'll do! I'll give him a nice shock by kissing him on the cheek!' she decided. When she leaned down to kiss him on the cheek he quickly turned his head just in time to catch her kiss on the mouth instead of the cheek and still make it look like an accident. Lily pulled away in surprise and looked at James with wide eyes. 

"Well, that was an interesting wake up call." he said raising an eyebrow and standing up to get his trunk and carry it out to the car. "Very pleasant. Wouldn't mind waking up to that every morning..." he mumbled on as he exited the room. 

Lily stood in the middle of the kitchen, still in shock, for another minute or two, then grabbed Alaizabel's cage again and turned to leave, still out of it. Mr. Potter and James put the trunks into the trunk and closed it. Then Mr. Potter got in the drivers seat and Mrs. Potter into the Passenger seat. James looked at Alaizabel, who had somehow opened her cage and claimed James's seat by the window, then shook his head while circling around the back of the car to Lily's side. "Can I scoot in here? Liza has pretty much taken over that side." 

"Sure, but I'm not sitting in the middle." she said dazedly as she got back out of the car and let James slide in before her. 

"Here we go!" said Mr. Potter as he pulled out of the garage and the short driveway and headed towards the main road.

The ride was a long and torturous one for Lily. James had annoyed the entire ride. He hadn't reverted to his former levels of annoying-ness, but had still managed to irritate her by remaining quiet and barely saying a word. This annoyed Lily because it left her time to think about too many things that worried her. Like if she would make any friends at Hogwarts, or if she would be any good at being a witch. Her biggest worry of all was which house she would be placed in. James had explained the different houses and how they competed in quidditch and house points, but had left how they were sorted unknown. Mysterious things that left puzzles in their wake always made Lily nervous because she couldn't figure them out without a little more information. To her it was like someone with O.C.D. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) putting together a jigsaw puzzle and discovering that the last piece was missing or didn't fit. Lily was incredibly nervous about which house she would be in as well. It worried her that she could possibly be put into a house like Slytherin or Hufflepuff. Not that Hufflepuff would really be that bad compared to Slytherin, of course. 

They finally pulled up in front of the train station and Lily hopped out of the car with Alaizabel, who had used James like a floor mat, walking right over him to the door and into her cage. Lily set Alaizabel down and got her things out of the trunk of the car. "I'll go get you a couple of carts." said Mr. Potter, turning and walking into the station. When he got back, James and Lily piled their stuff onto their carts and began pushing them into the building and towards the direction of platforms 9 and 10, Mr. and Mrs. Potter walking in their wake. "Here we are then!" Mr. Potter said when they had reached the space between platforms 9 and 10. James had explained how to get to platform 9 3/4 as well so Lily was not surprised when it wasn't there where it should've been between platforms 9 and 10. 

James's Parents said their goodbyes to their son telling him not to cause too much trouble in school and then they sent him and Lily on their way with one or two last bits of instruction. "Now remember, just walk on through the wall and try not to be seen. If you're nervous you might want to try to do it at a run." Mr. Potter reminded them. 

"And don't eat too much candy on the train ride there, you'll get yourself sick and you won't have an appetite for the feast!" Mrs. Potter said waving anxiously to them as they began to trot towards the wall at the same time. They passed through the wall and came to an immediate stop when they almost hit a girl who was standing right in front of them picking up books off the floor and throwing them into her trunk. This wouldn't have been such a bad thing had not half of Lily's leg still been sticking out of the wall. James worked his way past the girl and headed for the train. Lily followed him, but instead of going and getting on the train, she stopped and walked back over to the girl and helped her pick up the rest of the books. The girl looked up and Lily realized that it wasn't just some girl, it was Becca. "Hey! How have you been?"

"Well I was fine until some numbskull crashed into me. Thanks for helping me with the books." Becca smiled at her thankfully, and then continued picking up books. 

Lily smiled back "No problem." A whistle blew from somewhere behind Lily and she jumped slightly, looking at her watch quickly. "Oh no! We're going to be left behind if we don't get ourselves on that train now!" Lily and Becca grabbed their carts and pushed them quickly over to the train and began putting their things onto it. They put their pets onto the train first then they tossed their purses and backpacks on it. Next came Becca's trunk because it was closer. They struggled but managed to get it onto the train just as the second whistle blew. "Oh, crap!" Lily said panicking as she hopped off the train to get her trunk as well, followed by Becca. 

"One side! Coming through!" Sirius said in a jolly manner as he and James carried Lily's trunk towards the train door at a fast pace. Lily and Becca hopped out of their way and back onto the train quickly. Just as James and Sirius rushed in after them and sat down Lily's trunk the train started moving forward and picking up pace. Sirius had closed the door behind him and was now leaning against it trying to catch his breath. "That was... fun..." he said between breaths, smiling like a lunatic. 

Lily rolled her eyes at him and smirked. "Thanks guys, nice save." She said as she grabbed the handle on her trunk and began walking towards the back of the train looking for an empty compartment. 

"Yeah, thanks! Even though, you know, we could've gotten it ourselves..." Becca said as she followed Lily. Lily looked back at her with a smirk and noticed the stunned look on Sirius and James's faces. She hadn't even said hi to them yet and already she had managed to shock them thoroughly enough to keep them completely silent. 

"E-excuse me?!" said James said incredulously as he began following them down the hall. Sirius stared at the spot where the girls had been for a moment longer, then realized that he was alone and hurried to catch up with James and the girls. 

"I don't believe there is an excuse for you!" replied Becca. Lily giggled slightly at the joke. 

"Hey! I don't think you're qualified to judge that now are you?" James exclaimed indignantly. 

"It doesn't matter, you look the type." 

"Look what type?" 

"You know, the 'I know more than you so I'm better than you type' I sense a little of the 'jock' type in you as well." 

"Wow, I'm impressed!" Lily commented. "How long did it take you to figure that out?"

"Oh, I figured it out the first time I saw him. Only took about… five minutes? Maybe ten?"

"It only took you five minutes to tell that about him? Nice! It took me the better part of a week. Mind you I was four at the time."

"Hey! No fair ganging up on me!" James replied.

"We're not ganging up on you, you have Sirius." Lily replied.

"He's not any help."

"I-" pant, pant "heard that..." pant pant pant. Sirius had only just caught up with them and was out of breath because of the quick pace they were moving at.

Lily giggled again. "Come on Sirius, can't you keep up?" Lily mocked. "Oh, look, the door's open on that one, I bet its empty!" she added after looking ahead.

"How _is_ it that girls can walk this fast?" Sirius said struggling a little to keep up because the girls had quickened their pace at the sight of the door.

James answered Sirius's question with one word and a roll of his eyes. "Shopping."

"Right you are James-y boy!" Becca said in a fake super-happy voice. "If you had to try to keep up with your mum at the age of five while walking through the mall all day i_you'd/i_ be able to walk this fast too!" 

"I refuse to go shopping with my mum unless necessary. When I do it always ends in some sort of argument about some silly purse or dress or both. I'm this fast because I'm this fast." said Lily. 

"Huh?" said Sirius as the girls entered the compartment, which was indeed empty. 

"Wait! Let's get back on topic here. What did you mean by 'you could've done it yourselves'?" James asked. 

"I meant exactly that. We could have done it ourselves." 

"The train was about to leave! There was no way you would've been able to get it on in time at the rate you two were moving!" 

"Hey! That was because my trunk had a couple things sticking out of it! It got caught on the door hinge! If it weren't for that it would've been on there faster!" 

"Uh-huh, I'm sure." James folded his arms. 

"I doubt you're that strong." added Sirius. 

"Don't underestimate me just because I'm a girl." Replied Becca heatedly. "I guarantee you that I could take you in a fight!" 

"And you should i_know/i_ better than to underestimate me!" Lily added sharply glaring at both of the boys, well, mostly James because he had known her longer. 

"I respectfully bow out of this argument, I know where it's heading." James said actually bowing to Becca and Lily. 

"There may be some hope for you yet, Mr. Potter." Lily said smirking. 

"I doubt you could take me!" Sirius half yelled at Becca, completely unaware of Lily and James. 

"I wouldn't be so sure of yourself Mr. Black

"You wanna settle this then?" Sirius was glaring at Becca now.

"Yes! Let's do so!" Becca said backing into the compartment and taking up a fighting stance. She glared at Sirius and told him to close the door.

Sirius moved forward into the compartment and closed the door behind him. He took up a boxing stance and returned Becca's glare.

"Should we stop this?" James asked.

"Naw... I only just met her a month ago but I'm pretty sure she can handle herself. It's Sirius that I'm worried about. I don't want him to get hurt first day of school, it might ruin his day." James smirked at this and nodded in agreement.

"I know it would ruin mine. What say we hold them back and tie them up until they play nice?"

"Sound's good. But where are we going to get the rope?"

"Ummmm... I know... I'll use that spell I saw in my Charms book." he looked back and forth then realized he wasn't in his own compartment.

"Erm... can I borrow yours? Mine's in my trunk."

"Sure." Lily dug through her trunk until she found her charms book and handed it to James. He began flipping through the pages until he came to one in particular, which he read over twice.

"Okay. Here it goes." James did a little motion in the air with his wand and said some words under his breath but nothing happened except a few sparks coming out of the tip of his wand. Sirius and Becca were both oblivious to their presence and kept taunting each other, neither eager to take the first swing. Lily supposed this was because Sirius didn't want to hit a girl and Becca just liked to taunt him. James looked at the book again. "Oh! Oops..." He said then tried the spell again. This time ropes flew out of his wand and wrapped themselves around Sirius.

"Can I try?" asked Lily excitedly.

"Yeah, sure. I don't know if you'll be able to-" James was interrupted by Lily saying the spell out loud and having it work on the first time. "H-how did you do that on your first try?" James asked gaping at her. Sirius and Becca were now sitting on the floor all tied up and switching their glares back and forth from each other to James and Lily.

"What? Is that bad?"

"No, that's incredibly good." this came from a voice at the door of the compartment. Lily and James both looked over and were startled to see a medium height slim girl with short blonde hair that flipped out at the ends and eyes that were a mix of gray, green, and blue. "You're a first year right?"

Lily and James nodded their heads while Sirius and Becca just glared at each other some more. "I am too. My name is Kaitlyn Bay, but I really hate my name. I suggest you call me Kat or some other kind of nickname. Anything but Kaitlyn is fine."

"I'm Lily Evans and this is-"

"James Potter." he finished for her tipping his head in greeting to Kaitlyn.

"Who're the two you were jinxing?" she asked politely sitting down casually on one of the benches.

"Oh, that's Sirius Black and that's—"

"Rebecca Burns, call her Becca. They were fighting about something stupid so we tied them up. And would you two stop glaring at each other? It's not like it's going to kill you to get along for five minutes." ''Though I have felt that way around James sometimes' Lily added to herself.

Lily, James and Kat talked for a while until Remus stopped by looking for Sirius and James. "Erm... do I want to know?" he asked hesitantly looking at Sirius and Becca.

"Nope." Lily replied untying Sirius so he could leave. "Have you seen Kelly or Rebby or anyone?" she asked wanting to visit her friends.

"Yeah. They're back a car or two in the last compartment in their car." Remus replied exiting the compartment with a sulky Sirius and a, for some reason, impatient James dragging their trunks behind them.

"See you all later." said Lily.

"Bye." said James.

"Mumble grumble mumble." was all Lily could understand of Sirius, but seeing as he got smacked in the back of the head for it by Remus, it probably wasn't good.

"You want to come with me to meet my friends?" Lily asked Kat as she untied Becca.

"Yeah sure. It sounds fun. Just let me get my trunk. Its a couple compartments ahead, I was all alone earlier so I came looking for someone to sit with. I'll be right back." Kat left the compartment to get her things as Lily finished untying Becca.

"Took you long enough." she said. "Do I get to come along as well?" 

"Well, of course." Lily replied picking up the end of her trunk and beginning to drag it into the hallway. 

Lily and Becca were soon joined by Kat. They walked down the aisle until they found the compartment with Rebby, Bindi, Jill, and three or four other girls that Lily didn't know. When they walked in Lily was greeted with hugs from Bindi and Jill. She introduced Kat to everyone else and waited to meet the other girls in the compartment that she didn't already know. "Hey guys! This is Kaitlyn Bay, but I suggest you call her Kat. Kat this is Bindi Hopkins, Rebby Miller, and Jill Black, no relation to Sirius. And I don't know you all yet do I?" 

"Oh yeah! This is Taylor Fields, Anya Tennor, Jennifer Sime, and Leigh Davenport." Jill introduced the other girls. Jennifer Sime had long black hair in a pony tail and hazel-green eyes. She had a medium build and when she stood up Lily noticed that she was about the same height as her, 5'4". Lily shook hands with Jennifer then turned to Anya next. Anya had honey blonde hair, hazel eyes, and was about 5'2". Next came Taylor. She had long brown hair and green eyes and was about 5'3" tall. Lastly was Leigh. Leigh had a pale complexion and strawberry blonde hair past her shoulders with pale blue eyes. She was the same height as Lily and Jennifer.

After Lily, Becca, and Kat had shaken their hands they put their trunks on the rack and sat down on the bench seat and started talking about how their summers went and which house they hoped to be in.

They all wanted to be in Gryffindor, but Lily suspected that a couple of them wouldn't be if she judged by the way James had described the houses.

One thing was for sure, they all had a crush of some form or another on James, Sirius, or Remus. Lily was the only exception to this. No matter how many times Rebby, Becca, Bindi, and Jill brought up James's party, she remained adamant that she did not like James one bit, and when asked if maybe it was because she liked Sirius she exploded in laughter. Then Rebby came to the conclusion that Lily must like Remus. Lily thought about it then replied that, though he was cute and a really nice guy, she couldn't see herself ever dating him. 

"Why not?" asked Bindi. 

"Well, for one he's just a really good friend to have around, and for two, if I dated him what would you do?" 

"Erm... kill you?" replied Bindi in innocently. 

"Exactly!" Lily said laughing. 

They continued to talk about the three guys until the door to their compartment was opened by a young woman with vivid red hair pushing a cart full of candy and other snacks. "Would you like anything off the trolley dears?" she inquired. 

"Yeah!" the girls all chorused in response pulling out money and looking over the cart and picking out the items they wanted. As Lily paid the woman she noticed that she was pregnant and went to congratulate her.

"Congratulations on the baby Mrs... umm..." 

"Weasley, dear. Thank you, my husband Arthur and I are very excited." the woman replied smiling brightly. 

"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?" 

"Yes, it's a boy. Well, I must be moving on now, other children in need of sugar to rot their teeth with." Mrs. Weasley said winking at Lily and pushing the cart to the door of the next compartment. 

"She was nice, wasn't she?" Lily said. 

"Yeah, and it's funny cause I heard that the Head Boy this year is named Arthur Weasley. Think there's any relation?" 

"Don't know." replied Lily sitting back down and opening a cauldron cake. "So these things are good, right?" 

"You've never had a cauldron cake before?" asked Jennifer incredulously. 

"Err... no? I'm a mu-" Lily stopped talking as she was elbowed sharply in the side by Becca. "What was that for?" she asked angrily. 

"Umm... can I talk to you outside for a moment?" Becca asked cautiously. 

"Err... okay..." Lily replied furrowing her eyebrows in confusion and concern. She followed Becca out into the hall and was joined by Bindi, Rebby, and Jill. "So what's this about?" 

"You haven't told anyone your a muggle born yet have you?" asked Becca. 

"Erm... no, but why is it important?" 

"Well, it's not a very good idea to let very many people know that you are." said Bindi. 

"Why?" asked Lily, thoroughly confused now. She didn't know why it would or should matter that she was a muggle born. 

"Well... it's kind of because there are a lot of people in the wizarding world right now who believe that muggleborns shouldn't be allowed to practice magic, and that they are bellow them and are, well, basically the scum of the earth. We don't of course, but there are people out there like that and, well, you might not want to tell anyone because you might be picked on or attacked or prejudiced because of it." Jill explained. 

"Well, how the heck am I supposed to hide it? I don't know hardly anything about the wizarding world yet! Don't you think it'll be easy for anyone from your world to figure that out?" 

"Well, yeah, kind of, maybe, but... you should still try and not tell anyone you don't trust. Especially if it's a Slytherin, they hate muggleborns." added Rebby. 

Lily sighed and looked down at her feet. When she looked back up at them she had a look of determination and annoyance on her face. "Okay, if you all think I should, then I will, but I'm telling you it probably won't matter anyways. I mean, I stick out like a sore thumb anyways with this red hair. Add to that my lack of knowledge of the wizarding world and you have an instant result of 'completely obvious' on your hands." 

"Oh, and before we go back in, who does know?" asked Jill. The other three looked at her. "What? I just want to know so I don't let slip to the wrong person on accident!" 

"So far, just you four, everyone at James's party, and Kat." replied Lily. 

"Okay. Shall we rejoin the others?" asked Bindi as they entered the compartment again. 

"So what was that about?" Kat immediately asked when they returned. 

"Oh, nothing, I'll tell you later." Lily quickly changed the subject. "So, do any of you know what the sorting ceremony is like?" 

"No, my parents wouldn't tell me." was what the majority responded. Jill said that her father got this solemn look on his face when he responded and said "You don't want to know." This kind of gave Lily the chills. She hoped that she wasn't going to have to perform magic for the sorting ceremony, because if she was then she was in trouble. The only spell she knew was the one she and James had done on Sirius and Becca earlier. 

After a while the conversation lulled and Lily pulled out one of her school books to read. She had other books to read, but she thought it might be a good idea to read about other spells and jinx's and such before she got to Hogwarts, just incase the Sorting Ceremony did require that she perform some magic or something. Plus, even if she didn't need to know any magic for the Sorting, it might help her in her task to convince people that she was not a muggleborn if she read a few of her school books. Lily situated herself on the floor and began reading.

After a couple of minutes Becca, Rebby, and Kat, who had become fast friends, left the compartment saying they needed to find a restroom. Lily glanced up at them and continued reading. About half an hour later, as Lily wondered what had happened to them, the three delinquents spilled into the compartment and slammed the door closed. Lily jumped and stared in surprise at the sight of them. 

Both Becca and Rebby were sitting on the floor leaning against the door out of breath but laughing hysterically at the same time. Kat had tripped as she rushed through the door and now lay on the floor clutching her side from laughter. Lily raised an eyebrow at them and put down her book. "So what have you two been getting yourselves into?" she questioned them. 

"Oh, nothing..." Kat said trying to give Lily an innocent look but failing miserably as she cracked up with laughter halfway through. 

"Oh, reeeaaally? Then why are you laughing so hard?" 

"We, erm, we... uh... we heard a good joke...?" Becca attempted cracking up as well. 

Lily closed her eyes and shook her head back and forth, sighing tiredly. "You got yourselves into trouble didn't you?" 

"Erm... yes?" Rebby answered, unsure of herself. 

"Who with?" 

"Um... a 6th year?" 

"Which one was it?" Lily asked pinching her nose between her eyes. She could tell already that these three were going to be a pain in the arse to control the next few years. 

"Err... Lucious Malfoy?" Kat chimed in, also unsure of Lily's reaction. 

"And what exactly did you do to him?" Lily asked becoming more and more irritated at them. 

Just as Kat was about to reply she was spared the necessity to when the compartment door was slammed open and a tall girl with long blonde hair and black eyes walked in followed by a younger girl with the same black hair and blue eyes as Sirius.

"YOU!" the tall girl screamed at the three girls still sprawled on the floor. "WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU LITTLE-" 

"EXCUSE ME!" Lily interrupted "You are?" 

"Narcissa Black, not that it's any of your business." the girl sneered at Lily. 

"Black? Any relation to Sirius Black?" 

"Sadly, yes. He's my cousin, pitiful as he is." She spat. 

"Yes, well, mind telling me why you just barged into our compartment and started yelling at my friends?" Lily asked stepping forward. She wasn't sure who this girl was but she sure as hell wasn't going to go around bossing her friends around. 

"THOSE TWO... TWO... IDIOTS TURNED MY BOYFRIEND INTO A FERRET!" Narcissa screeched at Lily.

"A ferret? Well done girls." Jill smiled. "Next time you'll have to invite me along." If Lily hadn't been too busy being angry at Narcissa to listen to Jill's comment, she might have noticed that she had not three but four trouble makers on her hands.

"WELL I DON'T BLOODY CARE WHO THEY TURNED INTO WHAT, STOP YELLING AT ME AND MY FREINDS AND GET OUT OF OUR COMPARTMENT!" Lily yelled back much louder than anyone could have thought she could yell. 

"Don't you yell at me you little-" Narcissa began to say back, but was interrupted by Lily who was now shaking with fury. 

"I said, GET OUT!" Lily yelled as the two girls were forced backwards by an invisible force and the compartment door slammed shut. Lily turned back to her friends and was about to start in on Becca, Rebby, and Kat for making that Narcissa girl mad when the compartment door opened again. 

"Well done." Sirius said as he walked into the compartment followed by James, Remus, and the short pudgy kid with the blonde hair. What was his name? Oh yeah, Peter. "May I congratulate you on being the only person to ever out yell Narcissa Black AND win against her in an argument?" Sirius continued enthusiastically as he grabbed Lily's hand and shook it vigorously. 

"And your prize is: a life time of hate and torment from the Slytherin house and any friends that Narcissa Black may possess!" James carried on. 

"Not now you two. I'm not finished yelling at people yet." 

"And trust me; you don't want to be on the list." Commented Bindi who was sitting wide eyed staring petrified at Lily. 

When Lily saw her friend's expression she immediately felt all of the bent of rage escape her and a sense of weary annoyance came over her. Lily shook her head and sat down on the bench pulling her knees up to her chin and resting her head and arms on them. Lily sighed loudly and looked up at the people in the compartment. All of them were staring expectantly at her waiting for her to start yelling again except, it seemed, James, who had a slight smirk on his face. "And what, Mr. Potter, do you find so funny?" Lily asked exasperatedly. 

"Oh, nothing, just remembering the good old days when I would pull a prank on you and you'd yell at me like that." he said, his smirk switching to a genuine smile for a brief moment before the smirk was back again and he winked broadly at her. 

"Does she do that a lot?" Kat asked gulping. 

"Only when she gets extremely mad, and that hasn't happened in quite a while. Last time she exploded like that was about three years ago." James replied sitting down next to Lily and stretching in his seat. "So, what did you do to Cissy to make her mad?" his question was directed at Lily. 

"Me? I didn't do anything to make her mad except stand up for those three knuckle heads over there!" Lily defended herself. 

"Ah, and what did you two do to my dearest cousin?" Sirius asked in a sickly sweet voice. "Jinx her I hope." 

"Erm... no, we jinxed her boyfriend, what was his name?" Kat began. 

"Err... Lucious I think, Lucious Malfoy." Becca supplied. 

"Yeah, him. He was holding up the restroom, and when he came out he threatened to take away house points, said he was a prefect or something." 

"But then we told him we didn't have a house yet because we were first years." Rebby and Kat were both sitting in their seats again; Becca had situated herself on the floor leaning against the seat between them. Everyone seemed to have recovered from the shock of Lily's outburst at least a little by now. 

"And then he threatened to curse us." Kat continued for Becca. 

"But to his surprise we jinxed him first!" Rebby finished excitedly.

"I've been waiting months to try that curse out on someone!" Kat added.

"And the results were spectacular! He actually turned into a ferret! I can't wait to try out the others!" Becca added. Sirius looked at James and James looked back at him. They stared at each other for a moment, and then they both broke down in laughter. 

"Erm, yes, well, would you like to join us Remus, and, erm, Peter was it? You can both come sit down if you like. Close the door behind you though please." Lily said watching James and Sirius, who were rolling on the floor with laughter. "Do they do this a lot?" she whispered in Remus's ear. 

Remus, who had sat down next to Lily, whispered back "All the time. Only wish I knew a good spell to shut them up." 

"I've got an idea." Lily said smirking. She pulled out her wand and for the second time on the train ride performed the spell that ended with Sirius tied up. Again. At seeing this and the look on his best friends face when he was so unexpectedly bound and gagged, James laughed even harder, but was silenced moments later by the same spell from Lily. 

"Very nicely done." Remus complimented laughing silently at them.

With James and Sirius bound and gagged, the rest of the train ride passed peacefully. After a little while a voice sounded in the train saying that they would be arriving soon and for all students to change into their uniforms. Lily untied James and Sirius and everyone went to change their clothes. By the time they were done the train had come to a halt and the voice was echoing through the train again telling them to leave their luggage on the train and that it would be taken care of. All of the first years were being gathered at one end of the platform by a big man whose booming voice continued to call out "Firs' years! This way!" until all of the first year students had gathered next to him. He introduced himself as Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, and shepherded them to the bank of a lake where he instructed them to get into the large canoes that were waiting on the bank five at a time and wait. Lily got into a canoe with Rebby, Kat, Becca, and James. She had tried to kick James out and let Bindi or Jill get in, but they said it was alright and got into a canoe with Remus, Sirius, and Anya. Peter, who had been headed for Remus's canoe, quickly turned and got into the first canoe he saw that only had four people. This canoe just happened to be one containing Leigh, Ashley Jacobs, who Lily had not seen since James birthday party, Taylor, and a couple of other girls that Lily did not yet know. After everyone had gotten into a canoe, they suddenly, and Lily supposed magically, began gliding through the water at a quick but steady pace. After a few minutes the people in the canoes ahead of them began 'oo'ing and 'ahh'ing and Lily wondered what they were looking at. Then her canoe came around the slight bend in the bank of the lake and her jaw dropped in amazement. 

Lily was staring at a huge magnificent castle with tall majestic towers that was standing over a large steep cliff that dropped off into the lake. There were hundreds of lights on in the castle that gave the feel of thousands of fireflies releasing their warm home-y light. Lily closed her mouth but continued to stare at the castle in awe. She knew immediately that she would one day call this place home. 

The canoes continued on their journey to the bank just below the cliff where a path led to a door in the wall of the cliff. Hagrid knocked on the door a couple of times and it was opened by a tall woman with blonde hair pulled back into a low ponytail wearing a tall deep purple pointed hat to match her robes. "Follow me." she said kindly turning and walking calmly back through the door. All of the students followed her into the small hallway waiting beyond the door. She continued and they followed as the hallway grew larger and grander until they came to a halt at the top of a small flight of stairs. "I am Professor Emling. In a moment you will be taken into the Great Hall where you will be sorted. Wait here for just a moment." with that she disappeared into a door to their right and soon came back through accompanied by a short young looking man whom she assisted in carrying a three legged stool and a raggedy old bundle through another far grander door that was in front of the first years. When Professor Emling returned she gestured for them to follow her through the large doors, but just before opening them she stopped, turned to the first years and said "When you walk through the doors follow me down to the end of the aisle, then line up single file in front of the head table. Good luck!" with this she opened the doors and began walking through.

The students followed her through the doors and Lily's jaw dropped for the second time that night. The Great Hall was huge. It was so big Lily was sure she could fit the whole of her old school in it with room to spare. She looked around and, noticing that there were about two thousand students watching her and the rest of the first years, snapped her jaw shut. There were four extremely long tables situated long ways along the room and one smaller table situated across the width of the head of the room. The hundreds of students were seated at the four longer tables and there were about twenty teachers seated at the smaller head table. Lily continued walking along the aisle with the other students while inspecting the teachers table. She just glanced at most of them until she came to one sitting in the very center of the table. The man had long red-brown hair and a long red-brown beard as well. He was wearing long flowing midnight blue robes and a midnight blue hat both with little silver stars all over them. On his slightly crooked nose were situated a pair of half-moon spectacles which he peered curiously at the first years over. At the sound of the 'ooh'ing and 'ahh'ing of her fellow first years Lily noticed that most of them were now looking at the ceiling and chanced a glance up as well.

To Lily it seemed, at first, that the ceiling wasn't there at all. Then she noticed that the ceiling was there, it was just charmed to look like the night sky outside. Currently the ceiling reflected the peaceful, starry, clear night that it was.

They continued to walk up to the head of the room where Professor Emling stood waiting for them next to the three legged stool and ragged bundle they had seen her help the man carry in. When they reached the head table the first years spread out into a single file line and waited for... well, they weren't exactly sure what yet but they waited for it. Then the ragged bundle, which Lily now recognized as a very, i_very/i_ old hat opened a tear in its brim and began to- to sing! Lily's jaw dropped yet again and her eyes widened in disbelief, but she quickly caught herself and listened to the hat's song.

I'm an age old crown,  
Don't look upon me with such a frown,  
For ages I have served,  
Carefully preserved,  
To tell you in which house you belong,  
Now you don't have to wait for long.

Are you a Gryffindor?  
Bravest of all at heart,  
Daring, nerve, and chivalry,  
Set them all apart.

Or are you a Hufflepuff?  
Just, Loyal, and true,  
Never, not once,  
Do you only think of you.

There's always wise old Ravenclaw.  
Wits and learning belong to you.  
Teachers praise you endlessly,  
for what your mind can do.

Perhaps you are a Slytherin;  
Maybe here you'll find true friends.  
You'll do anything  
to make it to your ends.

Don't be afraid, I don't bite,  
and try as though you might;  
you'll not conceal anything from me,  
so just don't worry and you'll see! 

As the hat finished its song the people in the Great Hall broke out into applause and Lily joined them in clapping for the old rag. After the applause died down Lily looked to Professor Emling who was still standing next to the stool and was now holding a rolled up piece of parchment. She unraveled the overly long parchment and addressed the first years loud enough for the entirety of the Great Hall to hear her. "When I call your name, sit on the stool and place the Sorting Hat on your head to be sorted." she looked down at the parchment and began to read off the new student's names "Altman, Aretha." She called out. A girl walked up to the stool, sat down, and placed the hat on her head. After a moment or two the hat opened its brim wide again and yelled out "HUFFLEPUFF!" everyone clapped loudly especially the students sitting at the table farthest on Lily's right. Aretha quickly jumped up and placed the hat carefully back on the stool before practically running down to the table with the yellow and black banners hanging over it. Lily noticed that this was the table farthest to her right, the one that had cheered the loudest for the girl. Lily supposed this must be the Hufflepuff house table. She turned back to the hat for the next student.

"Burns, Anabell." the Professor called out. Lily watched Becca practically skip over to the hat and carelessly plop it down on her head. After what seemed like five minutes the hat yelled "GRYFFINDOR!" and Becca hopped up and joined the table second to Lily's right that had red and gold banners featuring lions hanging over it. 

Professor Emling continued to call the students over one at a time, allowing each student to sit on the stool and be sorted before moving on to the next one. Before long it was Lily's turn to be sorted and when the Professor called her name she approached the stool nervously and sat down placing the hat on her head. The hat was extremely large and flopped down over her eyes like it had with most of the other students. As soon as she had put it on she heard a wizened old voice in her head that reminded her somewhat of Mr. Olivander from the wand shop in Diagon Ally. "Ahhh... Ms. Evans... I haven't had anyone from your family in quite some time, quite some time... Now let's see, where to put you... you've plenty of courage, that's for sure, you're kind, but you have a nasty temper... Definitely not Slytherin... You're very clever, maybe Ravenclaw? Yes! That's it! But-, no, no... Well... don't just sit there, what do you think?" 

"Huh?!" Lily thought to herself through her shock of hearing a hat talking in her head. 

"Ravenclaw or Gryffindor silly! Which would you rather be in?" the hat asked. 

"Ummm... isn't that your job?" she asked it back mentally. 

"Yes, yes, but I sometimes have trouble choosing which house to put you, the student that is, in and ask you, the student, which you'd prefer." 

"But isn't that cheating? Then the student gets to pick their house." 

"No, no, no... you see, the initiative, or lack there of, to pick this house or that, also suggests that the person is willing to try to be like their house, willing to try to improve on certain aspects and or qualities of their house that may pertain to the selection of which house they belong in..." 

"Really? I never really thought of it that way... Well, then... Gryffindor would be nice, I've already got one friend in there and I like the colors." Lily replied. The hat chuckled slightly at her response and shouted out "Gryffindor!" at the top of its lungs. If it had lungs that is, which Lily supposed it didn't since it i_was/i_ a hat after all. Lily took off the Sorting Hat and walked calmly over to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to Becca and watched the rest of the sorting.

Lily looked around the hall after the sorting had completed. Of the girls Becca, Taylor, Anya, Ashley, Leigh, Jen, Bindi, Jill, Kat and Rebby had all been sorted into Gryffindor. Jen and Leigh, to Lily's surprise, had both been sorted into Slytherin, and Taylor and Anya had been sorted into Hufflepuff. James, Sirius, Matt, Remus, and Peter had been sorted into Gryffindor as well as the remaining girls, though Lily was still a little confused on how a kid as scared and nervous as Peter always was had managed Gryffindor. Sammy Turner had made Ravenclaw and Andrew Michaels, not at all surprising to Lily, had been placed in Slytherin. As Lily looked around the hall her eyes fell on Narcissa Black and the Slytherin table. The girl who had followed Narcissa into the compartment earlier had been sorted into Slytherin and was now sitting next to Narcissa hanging onto her every word. The girl's name, as Lily found out during the sorting, was Bellatrix Black, and Lily assumed she was also a cousin of Sirius's. 

Lily looked up as the man with the long red-brown beard and hair stood up silently. The man seemed to emit some sort of aura that simply stated 'do not underestimate me'. It wasn't that he looked mean or anything. On the contrary he looked like a quite agreeable and likeable old man. But something about him just made him seem powerful. As the man had stood looking at the students over his half-moon spectacles with a twinkle in his eye the entire hall fell to a hush, the noisy conversations that had been taking place before now were nonexistent. Apparently she wasn't the only one who found him a bit... intimidating? No. That wasn't it. She wasn't in the least frightened of this man, but still, there was something about him... 

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! I have a few announcements to make, but they can wait until after you have filled your stomachs to your hearts desire. So, with out further adieu, eat up!" The man clapped his hands once and a great smile engulfed his face at the 'ooh'ing and awing of the new students when the golden plates and platters that had before been empty filled with extremely large amounts of food. Chicken, fish, rolls, potatoes, gravy, corn, peas, salads, and so much more now crowded the table to the extent that Lily actually thought that the table might buckle beneath the weight of it all. The man sat back down and Lily turned to Becca.

"Who was that man?" Lily asked curiously. 

"Who? Him?" Becca gestured to the man Lily was talking about while grabbing a roll and a chicken leg in the same hand and placing them on her plate before diving after the bowl of salad. "That's Professor Dumbledore of course. He's the head master." Becca put the bowl of salad back on the table in front of her and reached quickly for the mashed potatoes, barely retracting it before another pair of hands got to it. 

Lily asked "How do you know?" 

"Well, everybody knows who Dumbledore is; he's a very popular wizard these days. He's powerful, too. A lot of people want him to run for Minister of Magic, but he keeps turning them down. Say's something about wanting to remain at the school and his students needing him."

"That's interesting…"

"OOH! Look! Ramen! I love Ramen!" And with that Becca dove out and grabbed a bowl full of chicken flavored ramen noodles and spooned herself some into her soup bowl. Apparently that topic of conversation was done.

Lily joined in eating with her friends, with out the snatching and grabbing, and began to enjoy herself. When she was so full that she felt she might burst she put down her fork, sat back, and looked around at the people sitting around her. Becca, Rebby and Kat were sitting next to each other on Lily's right and across from them were Sirius and James. All five were currently sitting, heads bent in towards the table, discussing something in hushed tones. 'Oh great, their up to something, and know the five of them it's not going to be a good thing for their victim...' Lily thought while rolling her eyes. She'd find out what exactly they were planning later. Sitting on James's right was Remus and next to Remus was Bindi. They were animatedly discussing some book or another that they had read. Next to Bindi was Jill who was having a conversation with a couple of second years sitting across from her and on Lily's left. Lily sighed sadly. Some how she had managed to join a school of magic, ride a long train ride, and enter a castle with several new friends.

Then she had managed to be excluded from them, yet again. This always happened to Lily. In the first grade she had met two new students and become fast friends with them, but a couple days later the new girls had become best friends and Lily was just the girl who tagged along behind them. After a while she had stopped even doing that because she could tell that the girls only viewed her as a nuisance that was in the way. Lily closed her eyes and, after pushing her plate and goblet half full of pumpkin juice back, laid her head in her hands and racked her brain trying to figure out how she always managed to get herself into these types of positions. 

Unknown to Lily, James had seen this and concernedly excused himself from his conversation with Sirius, Becca, Rebby, and Kat. He got up and walked around the end of the table and slid in next to Lily on her left. Lily, head still in hands preoccupied in her own thoughts, didn't even notice he was there. James furrowed his eyebrows in concern as he noticed she was near to crying. He put a hand on her arm and said her name quietly. Knowing Lily if he drew other peoples attention to her while she was crying she would probably get mad at him. "Lily?" he whispered questioningly. "Lily? What's wrong?" 

Lily looked over at James sharply, head still in hands, then turned her head back to face the table and closed her eyes again. James had startled her, which was new. No one ever startled her. "Go away James. I don't need you here right now. You'll only make it worse. Go talk with Sirius or something." She said trying to hold down sobs and not cry. The effort was choking her and sooner or later it was going to come out. She glanced over and noticed that James still hadn't moved. He was sitting there with a look on his face that clearly said... what? Lily had never seen a look like that on his face. It was always that stupid grin or a look of fake innocence when he got into trouble, never a look like this. It looked almost as if... he cared? "I said go away James." Lily repeated a little more forcefully. 

James shook his head in frustration "Fine," James said standing up "I'll go away, but if your upset I'm here to talk to." with that he walked back around the table and sat back down by Sirius. 

Lily couldn't hold in the sobs anymore, if she did she might burst. She quickly excused herself and walked out of the Great Hall in search of a restroom. As soon as she left the Great Hall the tears began to spill down her face. Of course, since she didn't have even the slightest clue as to where a restroom was, she ended up just wandering the halls for about an hour, when she came to a huge stairwell that was crowded with people. 

"Lily! Up here!" she heard someone call. Lily quickly whipped her eyes and looked up. Kat, Rebby, Becca and James were waving at her and urging her to hurry and follow them. 

Lily took a deep breath as she walked to the stair that would lead her up to them and began taking the stairs two at a time. About a second after she had stepped onto the landing they were standing on the stairs behind her moved away and a bar slid out in place of it. 'Wait' Lily thought 'The STAIRS just moved... WHATS GOING ON HERE?' Lily looked back at James, Kat, Becca, and Rebby with wide eyes and asked "Am I going crazy or did those stairs just MOVE?" 

"Yeah, they tend to do that." Becca said smirking while Kat giggled slightly. James just searched Lily's face for any signs that she might still be upset and found none, though he did notice the slight redness in her eyes and that the skin under her eyes was becoming slightly puffy indicating that she had been crying. 

Lily turned and faced Becca, Rebby, and Kat more directly to avoid James's prying eyes "So, yeah, anyone know where the restroom is in this place? I've been trying to find it for the last hour!" 

"You should've asked someone. This castle is huge and my dad's told me more than a dozen times about he and his friends got lost in their first year." James said offhandedly still looking at Lily with a slight frown on his face. 

"So what did I miss? And why does the stair move?" 

"You only missed Professor Dumbledore telling us not to go into the Forbidden Forest and that we'd get our schedules tomorrow morning at breakfast, stuff like that. Then we were led to Gryffindor Tower and given the password to get in. It's 'golden snitch' by the way." Kat said as they all began walking, James in the back of them.

The four of them walked down the corridor for a while then made a right turn. They continued on for a short time in this fashion, Kat, Rebby, and Becca talking about all the funny random things Lily had missed while away 'looking for the restroom' while Lily walked beside them in semi-silence, only really talking when she was asked a question or when a rebuke or response of some kind was expected. James followed behind them moodily staring at either the ground in front of him or up at Lily's back. He didn't know what was bothering her, but the fact that it bothered her bothered him. Lily didn't know this of course. She was completely oblivious to James thoughts and worries. Lily simply thought he had a headache or was really tired or something unimportant along those lines. 

Before long, Lily found herself stopped along with the others in front of a large portrait of a rather large lady in a pink dress. The label underneath the portrait said 'The Fat Lady' and left it at its obvious truth. Lily was admiring the fine brushstrokes in the portrait while wondering why they had stopped here when quite suddenly the Fat Lady moved. She actually MOVED in her portrait frame and turned to face them. 

"Password?" she asked no one of them in particular. 'Wait.' Lily thought to herself 'It moves AND talks! Since when to portraits move and talk to the people? This is more ridiculous than the moving stair cases!' The lady looked expectantly at them for a moment longer then continued on.

"Well? Don't keep me sitting here all night! I have people to see and things to do!" 

"Oh! Right! Sorry bout that!" Becca said suddenly. "Slipped out of reality there for a moment, just thinking about-" 

"Golden snitch!" James said aloud. It was the first thing he had said since they had left the landing in the stairwell. He quickly pushed past Lily, a look of sudden determination on his face. 

Lily's eyebrows shot up at seeing this look on his face. The last time she'd seen that look he had been determined to climb to the top of his roof and fly off. And he did. Only the flying off part didn't work out to well. It had been a very lucky thing that the pool was so close to the house, otherwise he would have gone splat on the concrete. Either way that look was never a good thing on the face of James Potter. It was the one and only sign and warning of when James had decided on doing something particularly stupid and/or dangerous. And when you saw it you knew there was no stopping him unless you physically bound him to a chair. Or a tree, as Lily had done when he had been determined to climb the tree and jump from it to the roof, a good four or five foot space, when they were nine years old.

'Oh great. What is he up to now?' she thought following him through the portrait hole into a large room decorated in scarlet and gold with portraits and tapestries all over the walls. Over to her right slightly was a large fireplace with big comfy looking burgundy leather couches in front of it. There were a few students seated on these couches and some more at the tables with chairs that were over to Lily's left and along the back wall of the room. Set into the back wall were two sets of stairs leading in the opposite directions. Lily's goggling at the room was soon cut off by words from Kat. 

"Welcome to the Gryffindor Common Room. The girl's rooms are up the set of stairs on the right, the boys on the left. Don't get them mixed up or you might find yourself in an embarrassing position when you walk in on some guy half naked changing in his dormitory." She smiled widely and when Lily turned to her, a surprise and laughter filled look on her face, Kat wriggled both her eyebrows at Lily as if hinting to something left un-said. Lily rolled her eyes and turned back to the room and noticed James going up the stairs to his dormitory taking the steps two at a time, the determined look still etched in his face as if in stone. 

'Yeeesh... he's definitely up to something. It better not be a prank to pull on me because if it is then he's in for a big surprise.' Lily noticed that she had been staring at the boy's staircase for a bit too long and that Kat, Rebby, and Becca were looking at her oddly. "Soooo... where are our rooms? I'm tired." Lily said faking a yawn and a stretch. She really just wanted some time to be able to think on her own for a while. Though the entrance into the commons and James strange attitude had interrupted her lonely thoughts for a time, they were quickly returning and Lily didn't want to have a break-down in front of the girls and have to explain her tears. 

Kat looked at Becca. Ana looked at Rebby. Rebby looked at Kat. Then the three of them turned and lead Lily off and up the girl's staircase their chatty hyper mood returning. Lily followed them up two flights of stairs and along a short landing to a door, the only one on the landing, that had a medium sized plaque with the words 'First Years' engraved in it. 

Becca opened and held the door while Kat said in the same narrative voice as she had in the commons "Welcome to the first year's dormitories!" She and Becca then quickly rushed inside the room and jumped on a couple of beds. Rebby follow and jumped on top of them with a yell of "BONZAI!" 

The room was decorated in the same gold and scarlet of the Commons and contained seven large redwood beds with gold and scarlet draping and quilts. There were also an equal number of wardrobes, desks, and desk lamps. The other girls in her year and house were all in the room hopping around and chasing each other while claiming their beds and unpacking a few of their belongings. Lily walked in and found her trunk on the floor next to a bed by one of the two large windows in the room. She quickly went and put her trunk on the bed and began unpacking, thus claiming the bed to be hers. After she had unpacked her bags and let Alaizabel out of her basket she grabbed her toiletries and pajamas and looked around for the restroom. 

After glancing around the room she saw a door on the far end of the room. Lily went to the door assuming it to be the restroom. When she opened it she found that she was correct in her assumption and went inside to change her clothes and brush her teeth and such. When she exited the restroom in her long blue pajama bottoms and white t-shirt she headed straight to her bed.

Lily hopped on the bed and pulled out a book to read. Once she had gotten herself settled she laid back against the pillows and began reading a book by Garth Nix entitled 'Sabriel'. 

The over large amounts of food in their bellies having made most of the girls drowsy, the rest of them followed suit and changed their clothes and got into bed. As her room mates slowly drifted off into sleep, Lily continued reading late into the night.

The next morning Lily woke up and looked at the ceiling in confused comfort. That is to say, she looked at the ceiling, stretched in the extremely comfortable bed and lay there soaking up her current comfort zone. Until, of course, she realized that she wasn't in her bed, wasn't in her bedroom, and wasn't even in her own house. She sat bolt up right and looked around confusedly at the beds surrounding her with lumps in them indicating sleeping people. Just to the left of her bed was a huge window with a stone window seat where the very beginnings of a beautiful dawn were pouring in. Then Lily remembered where she was. Everything came back to her in a sudden rush of memory and emotion that nearly sent her falling back into her pillow. Lily remembered the train ride, the sorting, the dormitory, and the commons all too quickly. And she also remembered the one thing she really wanted to forget forever. The feeling of un-acceptance and loneliness jumbled up together with the excitement of new surroundings and new things to explore. 

A tear suddenly sprang to Lily's eye but it was quickly wiped away as she pushed back her bed covers and jumped out of bed and into her fuzzy blue slippers. The fuzzy slippers were one of Lily's secret weaknesses. She had had them since she was 6 years old and they were the one sign that she might possibly have a small side of herself that was at least a little bit girly.

If anyone wanted to prove that Lily did have a girly side then all they would have to do is pull out something fuzzy and blue because she could not resist either, blue being her favorite color and fuzzy stuff being, well, fuzzy stuff. Who can resist fuzzy stuff? Lily giggled a bit at her fuzzy slippers and softly padded to the restroom so as not to wake anyone else in the room. 

Lily took a shower, brushed her teeth, and washed her face then got dressed in her school robes. She exited the restroom and went to her bed where she gathered her school books into her backpack along with a snickers bar she had brought from home and a rather large book that she had yet to read, as the one from the night before had been completed, and headed down the dorm stairs to the commons. 

Lily picked a couch next to the fire with a table in front of it and sat her book bag on the table and herself in the chair. Lily got out the book and sat it in her lap while she pulled her still wet hair into a quick braid and secured it with a hair tie from her wrist. She then settled into a comfortable position on the couch with her back resting against the arm and her legs curled up in front of her so she could rest her book on them. Opening the book Lily began to reading, loosing herself in the fictitious world and forgetting her worries, troubles, and current depression. 

After another hour of reading Lily glanced at her watch to see what time it was. Seeing that it was still only about 6:45 she continued reading wondering off handedly when someone else would wake up and come down stairs to the Commons. She covered about three or four more chapters before she dozed off from the warmth coming from the fire and the comfort of the couch. That, and from the fact that she had gotten up at around 5 in the morning. While she was asleep she completely missed the next person to come down the stairs to sit on the couch in the commons. 

James walked over to the couch and noticed Lily laying there sleeping. He sighed in relief that he hadn't woken her up yet and sat down at her feet. 

He wondered what she was doing down here so early and if she had even slept in her dormitory the night before. He knew she had had trouble with making friends in her stupid muggle school and that she had some issues with acceptance. He briefly thought that maybe that was why she was crying the night before, but before he really got to mulling over it he tossed the thought out. Lily had already made quite a few friends, most of which were in her dorm asleep at this very moment, so that couldn't possibly be it. Lily shuddered momentarily and muttered something under her breath that He couldn't understand. 

James, thinking she was cold, hopped up and got a blanket for her from the arm of another couch and laid it on her, avoiding waking her as best was possible. He sat back down and watched as Lily snuggled into the blanket and something fell from her lap that he hadn't seen earlier. It was the book she had been reading, of course, and James reached down to pick it up from the floor and place it on the table when he heard Lily mutter in her sleep again. He leaned closer to see if he could hear what she was saying but he couldn't make out was mumbled. To him it sounded like a bit of gibberish and what seemed to be a long painful and horrified 'no' coupled with the quickening of her breath.

James looked skeptically at Lily wondering if he should wake her from seemed to be a nightmare, but decided against it when she suddenly stopped wriggling around and muttering. Her breathing returned to a normal slow rhythm and she lay still. 

'Odd.' thought James. 'Wonder what that was all about.' He sat back and stared at Lily with a deep calculating look for a long time not even realizing that she was looking back at him with a raised eyebrow until about five minutes after she woke. 

Lily woke from her fitful nap slowly and didn't open her eyes at first. She just lay there thinking about the dream she had had. It was the same one she had had that summer the day before James's birthday party.

Lily analyzed what happened in the dream and yet again couldn't get past the fact that, in the dream, she was married to, or at least living with, James Potter, and that she had a son. 'Well, I still definitely don't like him... in that way at least. He is being awfully nice lately though, friendly even. If he means anything to me it's definitely just as a friend. Nothing more and probably a lot less.' Lily thought to herself. She heard a shuffle next to her on the couch and knew immediately that someone else was sitting on the couch next to her now. 'Wonder who's down here. Wait, I hope I wasn't sleep talking again.' Lily thought remembering the time she had dreamed Petunia would fall off her bike and break her arm while picking on Lily when she was little and shared a room with her older sister. Petunia had gotten up to go to the rest room and had heard Lily talking in her sleep about it and had told their parents that Lily wanted Petunia to break her arm. Lily had gotten yelled at and a punishment set for that and it hadn't even been her fault or true. Well, it wasn't true for the most part at least. 'I hope it's not one of James's friends and that I wasn't sleep talking. Or worse yet, James heard me sleep talking. Now that would suck.' Then Lily opened her eyes and found she was staring into the face of the very person she wanted to see least at this moment in time.

Lily jumped and gasped slightly when she first saw him and noticed that he was staring at her. She quickly realized though that he wasn't really looking at her, more of through her or beyond her. Lily sighed then said his name a couple of times to snap him out of it, but he just kept staring lost in his own little world and his own thoughts. Lily raised an eyebrow at this and wondered what he was thinking about right then. 'I really don't give a crap though.' she thought to herself just as he finally broke out of his stare fest and came back to reality. 

"Oh!" James said surprised to see Lily staring back at him. 

"You okay? Sure you aren't, you know, partially brain dead or something; because you were just staring off into space like a halfwit for a good 5 minutes." 

"Sorry. Just thinking about… about stuff." he replied looking away from her. "So... what time is it?" 

"I don't know." Lily looked at her wrist watch and read off the time.

"It's about 7 a.m. What are you doing up?" 

"Couldn't sleep. Too much on my mind." 

"Liiiike...?" Lily prompted. 

But James didn't tell her what he just replied "Oh, nothing. Just stuff." and shrugged his shoulders slightly as if to drop the subject from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor. "They should be serving breakfast now. You want to go down to the Great Hall?" 

Lily furrowed her eyebrows at him suspiciously, then nodded her head in consent and got up putting her book into her bag and closing it. She stood up and the blanket that had been laying on her fell to the floor. "Where did that come from?" 

"You were, erm, shivering, erm, earlier, so I put it on you." James replied trying not to bring up the fact that he had heard her whispering in her sleep about something, probably a nightmare. 

"Right. Well then, are you going to get your bag?" 

"Naw, I'll get it later. Let's go." 

Lily rolled her eyes at James and followed him to the Great Hall while trying to make small talk. They didn't say much and every now and then Lily caught that slight smirk on James face that she so recognized and wondered if maybe she should turn around and go back to the commons. This could very well be a trap to lure her into one of his pranks and Sirius and Remus could very well be waiting to pop out and surprise her in one of the corridors ahead of them. She didn't though. Instead she simply walked with him and tried to make herself aware of everything that went on around her; which was basically nothing right now because it was so early on the first day of school. 

When they entered the Great Hall Lily looked around nervously, half preparing herself for a bucket of water to fall on her head or Sirius to pop out of no where and throw a water balloon at her. But she relaxed and frowned, slightly disappointed when none of this came. She hadn't realized it but she really was kind of looking forward to some kind of prank from James. She would never admit it but they were usually actually pretty funny, even when played on her. She found herself missing this side of James which had mysteriously vanished when they arrived at Hogwarts. They both went and sat down at the completely empty breakfast table and began to have a conversation about the different classes they were to take at school this year and some of the things that had happened the night before when they went to their dorms. James's dorm had apparently had a small party that included staying up late, a pillow fight, LOTS of candy, and getting yelled at four or five times by a fifth year Prefect. When James started off on how mad the Prefect had been when he came in the third time and they pelted him with a pillow to the face, Lily suddenly interrupted him. 

"So what are you planning?" she asked excitedly. 

"Huh?" James asked bewildered. 

"I saw that stupid smirk on your face last night at dinner and this morning on the way to dinner and I know you're up to something. Now what is it?" 

"Lily I'm not up to anything. I don't know what you're—" James tried to act innocent but Lily saw through it immediately. 

"No, really, what are you planning? If it's a prank or something then I want to know. I want to help." 

"Really, Lily, it's- did you just say you wanted to help pull a prank?" James asked raising an eyebrow and smirking slightly. 

"Yes, yes, of course I did. Now who're we pulling it on? How can I help? What's the plan?" 

"Erm... well... I guess you can help if you really want to. I'll have to make sure the guys are alright with it first, but I'm sure they won't be opposed." James was smirking his full arrogant smirk now. 'Well I guess the other plan won't be needed then, she seems to be plenty happy now. Maybe it was just home sickness or something.' 

"YES! I can't wait! Who are we pranking? Who's helping?" Lily said excitedly, but James didn't answer as a large group of Gryffindors entered the Great Hall, the fifth year Prefect who was so rightfully peeved at James among them. 

"Tell you later." he mumbled under his breath. They continued to talk about this, that and the other thing until the food appeared on the tables as it had the night before. They began eating and were soon joined by some of their friends. James and Lily jumped into a raucous conversation with Sirius and Remus and that one kid, Peter, about the Prefect from the night before. When the girls came down Lily opened up her bag and took out her book again.

She had decided that she would rather not try to force conversation with them or have them feel obligated to force conversation with her, and so would basically ignore them most of the time. After a while Professor Bradford, the transfiguration Professor and current head of Gryffindor house, passed out the schedules at the Gryffindor table. Lily read hers through and, after noting that her first class was Charms, gathered her things and left to find the Charms class room.


End file.
